The connector itself I love - microUSB was just awful, mini USB was the weird ugly cousin, and that abomination of a connector that was USB3 (the microUSB combi

The connector itself I love - microUSB was just awful, mini USB was the weird ugly cousin, and that abomination of a connector that was USB3 (the microUSB combined with the long skinny one) was the worst of the bunch. USB-A still remains a good option and I do not see it going away anytime soon. As to what you are describing above I think that does lend itself to a ton of confusion. Thunderbolt can be done over what looks like USB-C. Tons of different power specs. For the non tech people it must be confusing as hell. Then again I would take the confusion with a single connector over many multiples of connectors if that is the alternative. What might have been a good idea would be to create a series of USB-C connectors that are slightly different but compatible in a downward fashion. For example if you bought a Thunderbolt compatible USB-C connector that could also do high current PD it could have a small notch in it that matched up to a lightning compatible port. This same cable could be used in a regular lowly USB-C port for regular power and USB3 but a normal USB-C cable could not be connected to the Thunderbolt port of the laptop. That would also introduce additional confusion however as most lightning ports can also act as regular USB3 ports, etc etc. I guess this is the price we pay for universal compatibility. Maybe a color coded system (like the blue with USB3-A ports) could help this - Thunderbolt ports and cables could require a yellow marker somehow - USB3 a blue marker - HDMI over USB-C could be red.