You've always been able to export flash to svg, png, even movies... Problem is that no browsers support the actual SVG spec.

It can't be type-safe, and it can't support real classes. You can't have two javascript 'classes' named the same thing without a collision. You can't have private variables, you can't have getter/setter functions.

ECMA chose to abandon ECMA4 because the majority of javascript developers were too... remedial... to understand such advanced concepts as 'classes'. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of VERY talented developers doing amazing things in Javascript, but their life would be made much easier if they had moved to ECMA4.

HTML5 doesn't scare them because it has feature parity with Flash 4.

Their plugin will keep innovating and optimizing, and HTML will pick up the pieces that iOS users miss the most. Their plugin has a very LONG future ahead of it. In the time it's taken between HTML4 (1997) and HTML5(2014), Flash will have released 11 or 12 versions. (that's ALL of them)

They're moving more compositing over to the GPU, with the addition of StageVideo and soon, MoleHill 3D API.

They had every reason and incentive to improve the compositing, etc, however some unnamed OperatingSystemXs would not let them have access to the GPU pipeline. Now that they have, Adobe has made a very strong movement towards using it as much as possible. And towards being as open about the new and upcoming tech as a corporation is likely to be.

You're suggesting that Adobe hasn't 'improved things', when in fact, they've been releasing new versions faster than ever before. 10.2 was just recently released, with support for 'StageVideo', allowing HD movies to be rendered via the graphics pipeline, giving native performance because it uses your hardware.

They improved their cursor support, hooking into the OS to provide 'native' cursors, rather than just drawing them in Flash.

IE rendering speed was increased by 33% due to new hooks into their 'native' graphics pipeline, they improved their OSX integration, however they didn't release performance numbers.

Their sub-pixel rendering has been updated, removing optimizations for CRTs, giving crisper, cleaner lines on IPS displays.

10.3 beta was just announced, which will provide echo cancellation for audio input, improved analytics for video-based sites, integration into browser privacy settings (no more super-cookie), and a 'local' settings panel for all Plugin settings.

Also on their labs site is their 'incubator', which provides a full and true 3D rendering API, though the release date for this has not been announced.

So, while you can speculate on what their incentives might be, you certainly cannot fault Adobe for not updating and improving their plugin.

The real issue is that neither SVG nor Canvas allow for truly interactive User Interface. Flash's graphics are inherently OOP, allowing for very simple and easy mouse interactivity. With Canvas/SVG, you have to maintain a separate map of where everything is, then when a click comes in, you have to manually do the click detection.

Obviously, this is entirely possible to replicate, but as ECMA4 (the intended 'new' standard that AS3 implemented) was thrown away for being too complicated for Web Developers, it seems absurd to me that they didn't bother building in just a LITTLE bit of interactivity help...

Know the difference between Theory and Hypothesis...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=theory&l=1

Adobe Air -
Easy UI interaction framework, very powerful drawing APIs, runs on windows/linux/mac/android.

http://www.adobe.com/products/air/

Latest version lets you call native apps on windows/linux/mac.