Jim Rapoza wrote an interesting article (SaaS Access in the 5 May 08 eWeek magazine pp35-43), that describes the next browser architecture as something very much like a remake of (IBM) 327x technology, with an additional  overhead layer. This, along with the adjacent article by Ryan Naraine on the Opus Palladium browser project at UI-Urbana-Champaign, suggests to me that one lock-in may be exchanged for another. Perhaps the devil we know isin’t so bad after all.