Not until string theory or another similar grand unified theory produces testable predictions.

I can't think of a 3-letter program that rhymes with Steed or Peel.

Did the authorities start shit with Charles Murray over The Bell Curve ?

chmod won't do anything if a whole file system is read-only. To make /system writable, it must be remounted, and only root can do that. The key difference between GNU/Linux and Android is that on GNU/Linux, the owner of the PC has root by default.

Was it rooted? That's what I meant by the backup requirement: to root a Nexus 7 tablet, you need to unlock the bootloader (fastboot oem unlock), and that wipes the device.

Correct. There is no cheaper alternative to play books, videos, and apps with Apple DRM, except perhaps an as-is previous-generation device from a pawn shop. And when the iPhone and iPod touch first came out, iTunes Plus hadn't landed yet, and people wanted a phone compatible with their library of FairPlay DRM purchases from what was then called the iTunes Music Store. Finally, the iPhone arrived roughly a year before the HTC Dream, and the iPod touch had a four year lead over Samsung's Galaxy Player, giving people plenty of time to lock themselves into what was then called iPhone OS.

But when I try to adb push a file back, I get an error "Read-only file system". Google apparently doesn't want end users to be able to specify whom to trust. Apparently I have to back everything up, wipe the device, and pray that everything restores properly before I'm allowed to edit system files.

For one thing, I've written plenty of programs that work in emulators but fail on hardware. (It takes literally four instructions to get Nesticle's behavior to diverge from that of an actual NES, for instance.) For another, the x86-64 box under a developer's desk is unlikely to support multi-touch input for pinch zoom, virtual gamepad, and anything else needing two points of contact.

By writing the app in JS instead of Java or C++.

Fat binaries were fine when software was shipped on CD-ROM or over unmetered wired broadband. It's less fine when software is shipped over a cellular connection that's billed by the bit. It's also less fine when people routinely uninstall large applications from a device's single-digit GB storage to free space for other things. And without an emulator for legacy applications, it's also less fine for people who want to continue running applications that haven't been recompiled.

Yes, as I understand it. Perhaps the biggest things preventing it are 1. developer apathy and 2. use of third-party closed-source native libraries.

The challenge is to make the filtered list other-than-empty without having to convince developers to recompile. I imagine that some developers are likely to refuse to recompile in order to price discriminate between the desktop market and the mobile market, where people aren't willing to pay as much per app as in the desktop market.

Technically, Windows 8.1's installer is distributed through the Store, so yes. But you were referring to games. All third-party games that run on Windows RT tablets come from the Store.

The problem is that you can use only XInput with Store apps. DirectInput doesn't work in Windows Runtime, and XInput doesn't work with HID class joysticks.

How about this: "They win noticeably more matches with a mouse and keyboard than with a gamepad." Or would you then proceed to slam me for not backing up "noticeably" with statistical rigor?

Windows Store applications cannot see HID controllers; they can see only Xbox 360 controllers. Only desktop applications can see HID controllers.