Have we gone full circle? Right now I'd really like a desktop application that uses each service's API to integrate everything into one interface (IMAP for Gmai

Have we gone full circle? Right now I'd really like a desktop application that uses each service's API to integrate everything into one interface (IMAP for Gmail etc). I would still use the web interfaces when not on my main computer, but as a hacker I'm on my main computer a lot and don't mind having things set up for extra convenience. I also feel that web GUIs are still hacky and limited by what Javascript can do in a window. Desktop applications have no such limitations in UX, and so works better for integration-type work. Ubuntu seems to be doing this well, or at least heading in this direction, and this is great for me.