Also, the specs themselves are non-ideal. What they really need instead of the cable DRM/smarts (USB Authentication [1]) is to standardize V-Droop (Voltage drop

Also, the specs themselves are non-ideal. What they really need instead of the cable DRM/smarts (USB Authentication [1]) is to standardize V-Droop (Voltage drop from no-load) detection and behavior. They need to make part of the spec a current ramp and monitoring of the voltage while doing so. If the voltage sags too much or ripple increases that means the cable or power source can't handle the load and the device needs to back off. There is very little a non-compliant power supply or cable can do to fake conformance without costing more than doing a conformant implementation. Some phones monitor V-Droop already as there are too many bad power-supplies and undersized cables out there. The downside is that it isn't as sexy to implement this. [1]: USB Authentication section of http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/ http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/