> expose all the settings, consistently, in a single programmatic way. That is the registry. It has an API and everything. > apart from being an incomplete w

> expose all the settings, consistently, in a single programmatic way. That is the registry. It has an API and everything. > apart from being an incomplete way to control all the settings Well, if you want "all the settings," so you have to accept 'all the complexity' that comes with that. A decent example would be VLANs. They offer a very complex configuration surface if you consider all the deployment and standard options combined with the fact that not all cards and drivers implement them in whole or in part.