I love Aminet's interface (the old one--not the "new" one on the master server), and I think sites like Download.com are bloated and steaming piles of you know what. :-) Seriously, there are two major file transfer protocols in use today, not counting NFS, CIFS, and proprietary P2P protocols): FTP and HTTP. The only difference between Download.com and Aminet is the flashy interface. The back end processes are basically the same.
Aminet could benefit from a slightly better indexing and search system, but the interface should remain simple. Modifying directory indexes and search results to link to the closest mirror shouldn't require a huge effort. . . .
Trev
