If it works for you great but for me I want most of the items i use to be on the one stable section, not having to change every time and having to remember all five(?) ribbons. Seems a lot more clicks and mouse movement to me and so I think it's terrible UI design. I've heard it was only developed so that Microsoft had unique patent-able interface so that Libreoffice etc would seem alien to most people. They could have had both interfaces and let people select what they find effective...

I would agree that we tend to treat the symptoms not the cause. However comparing the UK to the USA

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime

The UK has higher rape and drug use than the USA. And though i wasn't able to quickly find a reference but I believe the UK has much more knife related crimes. I would suggest most western countries have problems that need working on, it's just most don't have a fixation on guns like the USA

Yes that's a complaint i have too. As well as the near useless extra commentry on DVDs why can't they have another soundtrack with the levels adjusted for quiet listening; i live in hope.

i totally agree with your point about cars. in 50 years time we'll look back with amazement at how decadent we were now. 1.5t of metal to move often one person, 75kg. If you live in a city you can get away with a top speed of 60kph.

Whatever fuel source cars will use in the future they will be substantially more efficient than todays.

I do a similar thing but i start with knoppix and use that to access and clean windows folders, then boot windows and use hijack this to see what was referenced and make sure i've got it all.

As you say this approach seems to work with pretty much everything