> The design envisaged by these people is exactly why no one person or small group of people really deserve to be put on such a high pedestal. You have missed

> The design envisaged by these people is exactly why no one person or small group of people really deserve to be put on such a high pedestal. You have missed the point. The things we take for granted today started small and evolved from there; we have merely added a lot of superstructure to the underlying bedrock foundations envisaged by these select pioneers. All the application layer protocols and technologies utilizing them can be replaced as the fad changes (eg. distributed Objects vs. distributed web) but these core concepts/ideas/technologies will always remain and hence needs to be acknowledged. The situation is analogous to the building of great Architectural Marvels; even though a lot of folks with different skill sets are actually responsible for the manifestation, it is usually the "Architect(s)" who are credited with the achievement because it is the keeping of the holistic design together through its evolution is what is actually the key.