I think you make some good points -- and, in a funny but very real way, this will most likely be another example of a 'rising tide lifting all boats'...
But, that said, we're talking a
quadrupling of required resources. (Assuming this new MRR was developed with similar criteria to XP's MRR of 128 MB of RAM.
Now, sure, I'm currently running 1.25 GB of RAM and can go up to 2 GB in my notebook should I need to. But, while that give me more elbow room to spread the work out, it doesn't get the work done much faster as a rule. [I barely ever go into VM. I find VM
distasteful. heh )
And you gotta figure that every extra byte of RAM that's needed is going to put more weight on the CPU, moving it around and occasionally processing it. And more weight on drive subsystems, etc.
So, though I have over a GB of RAM, I still put some effort into keeping my system running lean and mean and my load size small. (Currently 112 MB with a 35 second boot time. Not bad, I think, for a laptop that's used for everything from web and database dev to audio production and video editing.)
Ultimately, I don't mind shelling out more resources --
if I'm going to get something in return!
But, duly impressed though I am by the gee-whiziness of OS X's Quartz engine and Aqua interface, I've never found that the rescalable graphics had any actual
benefit for me in trying to get things done on a Mac.
Now, it must be said, that my work on Macs is mostly getting things in and out of them, running utilities, using Photoshop for batch processing graphics, etc, for clients who are calling on me to implement their graphics or designs on the web. Perhaps if I were to use some apps that really make use of the advanced features of Quartz I would begin to see why they really are necessary now.
Don't get me wrong, here, I think it's a great notion and it
certainly is time for MS to get up to speed with a rescalable graphics engine.
But I've yet to see any compelling use for one, for me... for now.
Hopefully, when the technology hits the large and vibrant 3rd party dev community that serves the broader computing community, we'll see some real innovations and the kind of gotta-have functionality that has driven most big jumps in personal computing.
So, I'm skeptical -- but hopeful.
But skeptical...
heh
_____________
PS... first virus...

... we should bronze it and hang it from the rear view mirror... where I can clearly see The Good Ol Days rapidly receding...