>The design ideology was to be generic, to have a lighter footprint, to perform operations on all forms as if they were the same, and in fact they were for certain intents and purposes, blah, blah, best laid plans of mice and men and all that.

Sounds like a bit late in the game to change too much, eh? :)

>I can't help but wonder if ideology and idiot might derive from the same Latin root word?

Completely baseless, my friend. It's Greek, but you got the right idea :)