Granular control of the access that applets have thus seems to be needed. Making Java 'secure' is not enough, because people will 'turn off' all the security to make one applet work. It might also be interesting to consider automatically updating software, that can replace itself from time to time, after verifying that a signature is correct. Although, that does raise the value of stealing a key from some well known, trusted applet vendor. To summarize, 'security' in the vauge sense that Java promises, while useful, needs granularity to allow it to fulfill its potential.
Comments are welcome.