>Can you be open to this:
>Is it possible that a developer has been building high end applications a long time - and just maybe - has a library (frame-work) that surpasses commercially developed ones.

Oh Absolutely! Hey your beginning to understand aren't you! If a developer has any sort of time invested into developing apps regardless of how complex they are he's bound to have library/framework collection of parts & pieces he reuses. Now whether that framework is his own, or a commercial one was not the issue we're taking up with you. This issue was you didnt recognize our common use of the word "framework" to mean the same thing as "library". You asked what a framework meant and we told you...

> Would you think it possible a developer without a commercial framework could build better systems than developers using a frame work?

Yes, but that of course depends on the skill of the developer. And a highly skilled developer can build robust applications equally well with or without a framework... it's just if it's "without a framework" that app will take a whole lot longer, which means more $$$$, to build from scratch.

>Do frameworks anticipate the weakest link?

In some cases yes and in some cases no, depends on the situation and the extent of the framework being used.