"If Mozilla thinks this is the best route for them they should do it" I'm all for Mozilla having the power to make good technical decisions, but it sounds like

"If Mozilla thinks this is the best route for them they should do it" I'm all for Mozilla having the power to make good technical decisions, but it sounds like you are suggesting that Mozilla ignore their user base completely. That's a recipe for the death of Firefox, IMHO. I know there are technical reasons that Mozilla is wanting to get rid of XUL, and those reasons look legitimate to me. The problem I see is that they don't have a replacement for XUL that affords the same level of customizability that it does. I've done a little work with XUL, and yes, it's no picnic. I would welcome an alternative that was simpler, and better designed. However, if the replacement only offers a fraction of the flexibility of XUL, then addon developers aren't going to like it. "Input on features like that shouldnt be taken from users who will not have the long term view of firefox." ^ That's a pretty broad brush you are painting with there. There are a huge number of us who have been using Firefox since it was released in 2004 (and Netscape Navigator before that). I haven't taken a formal survey, but the feedback I've seen from the long-term users is that the depth of customizability available via Firefox's addons is one of the primary reasons they continue to use the browser after all of these years. Also, I would venture to guess that the people most likely to continue using Firefox are these dedicated long-term users. But if Mozilla insists on ignoring the wishes of these users, they will lose the strongest advocates in their user base. Ignoring your users is a terrible idea. Again, I welcome a replacement for XUL. Just make it a full-featured replacement, and don't cut off XUL development until said replacement is indeed full-featured and reasonably stable. Maybe Mozilla can't pull that off, but I would certainly like to see them try.