>I can see Microsoft's point but it seems to me to presume a sort of lowest common denominator type of thinking with respoect to user's intelligence.

This is where I think you and Tamar are wrong. Regardless of the users expeirence (you say intelligence) the My Documents folder is a time saver and makes your computer easier to use and maintain in nearly every way.

I can think of only one disadvantge to a My Documents special folder, and thats security and privacy. Viruses and hackers know where to go first when they wanna wipe you out. In a coporate environment, I don't think this is so much of an issue, in a properly administrated network. At home? Well, MS still has some work to do I think, but if a user wants to keep a document sensitive, they should learn how to do that (and its not all that hard anymore).