I appreciate that you're devil's advocating it, and I'm still personally undecided on what direction Apple should be taking, but I'll just point out that all of

I appreciate that you're devil's advocating it, and I'm still personally undecided on what direction Apple should be taking, but I'll just point out that all of those aspects could also be applied to OS X: - Reliability is still important on your desktop, and, though a mobile platform is more constrained by processing limits, it's up to the developer to respect those constraints. You don't get carte blanche to load forty terabyte files on a desktop app; you realize that your success depends on your ability to deliver a reliable app. - Apple's HIG is actually pretty well-applied on OS X; from a strictly UI point of view I don't think they need to mandate you follow their stringent guidelines. Besides which, after the year or so of the AppStore in play, people have a good idea of what an "iPhone app" should look and feel like, which helps reinforce this. - You can load up all kinds of filth, theoretically, on OS X. It happens. But it's not a big deal. That said, I probably agree with your final point. I suspect Apple's throwing around a lot of solutions to the "AppStore problem", but since Apple tends never to leak anything until release, it's frustrating to be in the dark in the meantime.