You raise valid points, so I'll elaborate on my thinking: I don't really care what binary serialization format is used (personally, I use thrift), there's no sh

You raise valid points, so I'll elaborate on my thinking: I don't really care what binary serialization format is used (personally, I use thrift), there's no shortage of good ones available (msgpack, thrift, protobuffs, avro, etc). I think it's more important to decouple the serialization format from the transport and protocol, so that when/if you realize you need to switch you only have to replace one piece.