3) My guess is that these execs are M&A (Mergers and Acquisition) specialists. They were likely specifically bought in to engineer something like this. So they've done their job and they'll move on to the next.

Doesn't look that way, but I agree on all of your other points.

The departures included David Gurle, vice president and general manager for Skype for Business; Don Albert, vice president and general manager for the Americas and Advertising; Doug Bewsher, chief marketing officer; Christopher Dean, head of consumer market business development; Russ Shaw, vice president and general manager; and Anne Gillespie, head of human resources. Two executives who joined Skype following its acquisition earlier this year of video-sharing utility Qik have also left. They are Qik founder Ramu Sunkara and senior vice president Allyson Campa.

RedHat Enterprise Linux 1, 2, 3 & 4 - all gone

Except that RHEL3 is still supported in its extended life cycle phase until October 31, 2013, and RHEL4 doesn't reach the end of its regular life cycle until February 29, 2012 - and then is in extended life cycle phase until February 28, 2015

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle

Every major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is maintained and supported independently during the 10 year Life Cycle

But yeah - RHEL 2.1 reached EOL in mid-2009, so you're right about that - gone. There was no such thing as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 1, though.

That's because they are erecting large barriers to entry, it's not just because the other operating systems aren't as smart as theirs.

FTFY.

[Citation Needed]. Seriously, where is the research you speak about?

Here's some, from the link above: http://www.psych.utah.edu/lab/appliedcognition/publications.html

My car came with a radio installed. I'm going to sue Ford for their monopoly on car stereos.

So if you want a different radio, can you remove the existing radio and install a new one, or do you have to install another radio in addition to the existing radio, or the car stops working?

As a long-time Mac user, I have the same complaint-- OSX doesn't work well for keyboard-centric users. I miss being able to do Alt-F-Whatever on the keyboard to do things that there aren't shortcuts for.

Quicksilver.