I think the fact that Brilliance was released at the time of the bankrupcy did play a big factor in its not becoming wildly popular. DPaint was around at the beginning, did a fantastic job, and is obviously still popular.
The other thing, Brilliance was released at the same time Digital Creations was becoming Play. I wrote large portions of the Brilliance manual (part of the contract was a new 4000 and monitor..heck, they didn't know we'd have done the job for just those!) Apparently Jim Meyer, my writing partner, and I nearly missed Kiki and the other folks from NewTek who were here to discuss the merger. Because of the merger I don't think Brilliance got the PR needed to make an impact in the market.
Still have Brilliance running on this A1200. Wonder where the programming team went?
Bob Eller