As someone who designed the replacement database layer (that literally improved the speed of access by an order of magnitude, after I promised the VP it would d

As someone who designed the replacement database layer (that literally improved the speed of access by an order of magnitude, after I promised the VP it would do in an off-the-cuff meeting, and my director face-palmed at hearing me say it) and then managed the new graphics engine team, I feel your pain. Aperture was fundamentally too small a market for Apple to justify keeping a 'pro-app' team working on it. The concept was a high-cost semi-pro feature-set, and the market soon decided it cost too much and the price had to fall. Once that ball started rolling, the doom was set. Still, I went on to do more interesting things at Apple - the latest being writing the client<-->server team bridge for 'Hide My Email' to let apps like Safari and Mail integrate into the server-side anonymous-email-mapping-to-a-known-address facility. Lots of cool tech in there, under the skin.