Great read!
The Amiga angle is interesting. Regarding what others have said, it's true, there's no comparing a 386 or 486 to a 68000, but the challenge that needed to be overcome was that what seems like huge throngs of people didn't (and still don't) know Amigas even could go faster than a stock A500. Maybe on the development front there were some economics to consider (not enough of an 020/030 userbase to sell to, almost certainly not enough of a network card userbase to sell to)...
But whenever the Amiga comes up in popular conversation (Slashdot, other major computing sites), the collective memory seems to be of a Kickstart 1.3 A500 with no hard drive, or, at best, a Video Toaster-equipped A2000. Almost no one remembers AGA, OS2.x+, 040s, or RAM. Those are the things that gave the Amiga its longevity, and what allow the Amiga to be a servicable, if limited, platform today.
