Not having to boot the OS to load programs, what I mean is on the classic Amiga you could use your Amiga without ever having to load up the OS/Workbench, games could boot straight up, even programs could self boot, all powered by the Kickstart.
You still can boot without a startup sequence in OS4 if you like. Of course, OS4's Kickstart lives on disk (how's that for a full on trip into retro land for you?), so you still need it available, even if it is on an external medium (install CD for example).
I think this is one of the reasons the Amiga had a edge over the PC in early days, no having to go into Dos or Windows to load a program, just slam the disk in and let it get on with it. I kind of liked this, because you could just use it like a game console, never having to touch the OS or complicated code to get a game or program running, why are these days gone, I know this is not really an OS issue but more of a Bios and Uboot issue but do you think we will ever see this again on a computer?
You are sort of confusing the OS with Workbench, I think. Regardless of whether or not you started a full workbench session, or even just an amigados one without startup,
AmigaOS was always loaded right from power on, even when booting from a non-os friendly game. What do you think activated the floppy drive and read in your game's bootloader?
plus why does everything has to be installed, ok I know its quicker and easier no disk required etc, But kind of liked the option of not filling my hard disk up and having to use it to perform every task, these Linux Live disks proves that you dont really have to have a hard drive for everything.
So what do you lot think?
This is a bit of a nonsense argument these days, IMHO. How is it an advantage? Storage is vast and cheap today. You aren't going to fill a modern HD quickly by installing applications, especially Amiga ones. It's your data that takes up the room. My oldest still-in-service Amiga hard drive (1.2GB, utter peanuts by todays standards) still has plenty of free space after 15 years!
Booting straight into an app from disk was useful before I had a hard disk but I'd much rather be able to launch something without having to rifle around in a drawer full of disks, which usually takes longer than it does booting the system
It was the whole reason I bought a hard disk for my Amiga in the first place and it was one of the single most useful hardware upgrades it ever had.