Nice blog. Very well articulated. You have identified the issues. And the solutions are not that far behind, if you know the problem very well. It is a simple logic: we need to invent reusable Ajax GUI Classes that are better than Windows/VC++ GUI classes.

Simple isn’t it?

We have already done it. It is possible to leapfrog the 25 years old desktop GUI paradigm, when next generation Vector Graphics platforms are released. Please review:
http://cbsdf.com/technologies/DHTML-Widgets/TECH-Summary.htm

But the DHTML can never match the traditional GUI platforms, because, we cannot use GIF images for many GUI components. For example, both Microsoft and Google ended up using SVG (in Mozilla) and VML (in IE) in their Maps to draw lines for directions.

If one uses a GIF image for Flights in DHTML based Air traffic monitoring system, how to rotate the Flight to show its direction or change color? In case of vector graphics, it is as simple as changing a single XML element’s attribute.
http://cbsdf.com/technologies/jsp/atc_test1a.jsp

You made a very good point:
“If there’s a better way to cover the same underlying functionality, then go for it.”

The XML graphics technologies offer unprecedented flexibility and freedom to invent new GUI paradigm. We can do lot more things that are practically impossible in the traditional GUI platforms. The following web page just briefly illustrates those.
http://cbsdf.com/technologies/demo-links/Demo-SVGS/Widget-design.html

This is just a beginning and we are exploring even more amazing possibilities for the XML based graphics technologies. Best part is that the online applications would cost lot less to build and lot more agile to maintain.

Regards,
Raju