I think what many of us really want is federation or some level of interoperability such that we can run our own services that work transparently with G+ as a p

I think what many of us really want is federation or some level of interoperability such that we can run our own services that work transparently with G+ as a peer. More like the way email works. (As a bonus, this would neatly sidestep the ano/pseudonymity issue.) So, when I can run byjoemoon+ on my own server and interoperate with G+ users with complete feature parity, I'll be really happy. Meanwhile, I think the API stuff is great, but only a half-measure.