Somebody could probably do a thesis on the psychology of the Amiga community. I expect to see that about the same time the soap opera/off-Broadway musical/inside-story book/etc. appears. I was into BeOS in a pretty big way, too, and understand what you're talking about. The company itself was quite dynamic, had articulate tech-savvy staff, and developers/users that either weren't dysfunctionally emotional about the platform or were just level-headed and practical. This elevated the whole thing beyond what we see here.
On the other hand, what we are involved in here is a phenomenon that goes beyond mere personal computing. In fact, I really think this is what keeps a lot of people around, people that aren't especially into using an Amiga computer even, people who mostly use Windows or whatever but enjoy the personality conflicts and drama of this little companies battling it out.
There were personality issues and corporate goofiness with the Be platform, too, especially in the latter stages, but the raw technology was always the main attraction. It hasn't been that way for the Amiga for a long, long time. Maybe once these products are out and when (or if) things proceed on their own inertia, then the heat will die down. But probably not. For one thing, the very existence of the companies involved will be uncertain for the foreseeable future. You can imagine certain scenarios in which things would be more stable, but they'd also be boring.
-- gary_c
