@reflect
You're entitled to have your opinion. As an OS developer, however, I see many of the OS4 design choices as quite - well frankly - bad. Many of those bad choices were later reversed, though. Yet, I see OS4 as half-breed between totally new concept and trying to stick to 3.x compatibility. The result: Not quite all brand new system, yet not quite 3.x compatible system either. But hey, I bet 4.1 (assuming the legal troubles can be resolved) will solve all this by throwing away rest of the legacy "crap".
Still, considering the time spent, and the availability of technology and information at the time, I still rank 1.3 -> 2.0 much higher than 3.9 -> 4.0.
You don't need to agree.
Oh heh, it's 2008 here btw, better get back to work now :-)