The critics are wrong: KDE 4 doesn't need a fork (ars technica)

I am a little amazed at this guy's focus on the desktop (the actual place where wallpaper and
such go traditionally).  I rarely use my desktop because that would mean closing windows or
using an out of band desktop icon to get to it; but that's just me.  Although, I notice that
many windows users always used maximized windows, it seems like accessing the desktop would be
a pain for them too? Perhaps with plasmoids I might fine the desktop useful eventually?  But
why all this fuss over the desktop?  KDE is about application integration with frameworks, not
the desktop.

I haven't used KDE 4.x, so beware, off the top of my head the plasmoid thing sounds cool, but
not the major improvement that I might hope for, such as perhaps taking plasmoid like ideas to
the application level where it would be more powerful.  But also a project centered desktop
would be a major win.  A complete flexible hierarchical plasmoidal project/window/session
manager, is what we really need!

A more project focused desktop/window/session manager would allow me to organize all the
applications/files for a project together into a project session.  I would be able to work
with several projects at once and depending on which project had focus the entire desktop
session would morph to the layout of that project!

A project session would be saved into one file (a project file) and would be start/stop-able
without having to login and out.  A project session would make use of already existing
paradigms.  It would be configured so that all the associated windows were grouped inside
another window (MDI?), or if preferred, the project would add itself to the list of desktop
windows (perhaps now labeled projects?) when it is active (opened).  Add plasmoids to the
picture and have a project specific plasmoid enabled desktop inside the project session
window/desktop.

Allow me to not only have session enabled projects that save their state continuously and
safely (the way Firefox does) for easy recovery after crashes, but also allow me to save the
state at any point in time as a separate project which I can then return to later if I want
to.  In the mean time I could continue to move forward with the project without fear of losing
the previous state!

And when I say session based, I mean fully session based, with the ability to save everything!
Save file statuses (and contents), window statuses, application statuses (especially terminal
statuses), connection statuses...  Allow me to email a project file home and open the project
session at home!

That is where the desktop paradigm should move, the desktop should at least be able to deal
with a project!  But that's not all, let's move on to windows and applications, another area
where a technological framework such as KDE (or even QT) could be providing better
integration.

Applications widgets could be built with a more flexible layout mechanism that is easily user
configurable.  I should be able to move around every pane or widget from any application to
anywhere.  I should be able to unhook an email message list pane from my email client and hook
it onto the desktop like a plasmoid.  But, I should also be able to simply hook a terminal
pane inside of any other application, perhaps my email client?

Why keep applications so isolated from each other at the GUI layer?  Depending on my current
workflow I should be able to configure one window with exactly the panes that I need laid out
the way I prefer, and if I need one button from one other application along with those panes,
I should also be able to create a new pane with a place to drop that button in my window.
This is the kind of integration that we should expect from our desktop frameworks!

Please don't take this as a criticism of KDE, it is not!  I am simply venting my frustrations
at what I see as a lack of completion of a lot of very good ideas that Linux/KDE (and other
desktops) have had. None of this is revolutionary, I am just carrying normal ideas that we use
every day to their logical conclusion...

-A patient and hopeful longtime Linux KDE user. :)