.info is not synonymous with .lnk. In fact, .info has more in common with .pif than .lnk. .lnk are pointers to files in other locations.
Neither pif or lnk are that good a match. However .lnk files allow you to have icons on your desktop that specify an .exe and flags for a document, which is similar(ish) to .info.
Neither .lnk or .info are a good solution for documents.
.info is good for registry style information, though I can't remember if running from the shell picks them up.
People want to move documents between machines, the majority don't care that they can specify the coordinates of every one of their thousands of documents.
While it's annoying when a windows app steals a file extension you use for something else, encoding the type of file in the name is not a bad idea. It has to be stored somewhere & we are still reliant on 70's file system designs.
Windows also doesn't just support one open method. You can specify different programs for viewing, editing & printing (plus whatever you can think of).
My prediction is that .xml will eventually take over.
