HKCR has a lot of entries, but the data underneath those entries isn't particularly complex. Its only really big misstep (apart from the fundamental issues wit

HKCR has a lot of entries, but the data underneath those entries isn't particularly complex. Its only really big misstep (apart from the fundamental issues with the registry in general) is that file associations and COM registrations are all intermingled in the same namespace. But those can be and are interconnected (see how the Office file types handle their registrations, for example), so it's kind of understandable how they ended up where they did.