I had written my .plan on New Year as a tired self-patting on spending a lot of time typing and not getting much done. In restrospect, there is little I have to say that is of interest to the .plan audience. I sit and type until I get sleepy. It is an exciting time. I would compare the paradigm switch of HW acceleration to that from x86 to Pentiums.
Most engine development suffer from feature bloat.
It is as much the programmer as the gamer. Gamer heckles when an engine does not have a feature, whose feature is not as advanced, or even if it uses a different method. The BSP versus portal thing is a good example. On a certain level, I think childish competition is a little silly. An engine lacking a feature, or implementing it differently, does not make it a worse engine.