Those are some really good examples of the opposite of what you intended to say. > * Wonky unwieldy hypertext systems instead of the WWW Which ones? Gopher wa

Those are some really good examples of the opposite of what you intended to say. > * Wonky unwieldy hypertext systems instead of the WWW Which ones? Gopher wasn't hypertext, but it is still going and still a good idea. A conversion to Gopher would be a huge usability and accessibility upgrade for many current websites. > * The Nomad instead of the iPod iTunes is garbage. iPods sucked until (certain models) had Rockbox ported to them. > * The Blackberry instead of the iPhone How about the Nokia n900 instead? > * GNU Hurd instead of Linux I'm "stuck" with BSD. Send help? Ambitious projects are cool and should be encouraged. Being an ignoramus about existing developments (not saying that that is what the people behind Matrix are doing) and getting distracted by anything that claims novelty should not be. Hoare had a great bon mot about this: "Here is a language [Algol 60] so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors."