Craig, seems to me we need to reflect on the reason whenever something new comes from MS, or Google or anybody else for that matter. A stated reason is interesting, but it's not definitive IME. Especially when compelling justifications were proposed for products like L2SQL with VFP mentioned in a curious fashion that time as well.
I do agree with the concept of pulling low-level complexity away from users who don't need it. Google has that goal for solutions for its smart mobile devices and if they succeed, MS *must* have something similar or their ownership of the desktop will be like ownership of the buggy whip market when Ford's newfangled machine first rolled out of his factory.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
