There is some truth to the saying that boredom is a prerequisite for creativity. Designers are not paid by the number of pixels drawn, lines coded, calls answered, or cupcakes baked.

You are misinformed. Regulation and its subsequent abuses lead give a false sense of security and entitlement, which then makes the misfortunes worse. It is a fantasy to try to make markets into safe, fair, and predictable money-printing machines where no one is harmed, or where everyone is harmed equally. You can regulate endlessly until you finally kill the market you are observing and gradually make all of the participants lives miserable. The real market will move elsewhere. Read some history.

Who cares about the Nobel Peace Prize? Would Linus feel honored or embarrassed to be in that company?

The HTC Hero that Sprint released in the US has a cheaper looking design and is hardly an object of any sort of lust.

Android with FLAC support would be amazing. It's been done through 3rd party mods. There is some interesting info in this thread, including more informed observations about processor issues:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1461

Songbird has had FLAC support for years.

I really need a player with FLAC support. What are the best options?

I switched to OpenWRT as soon as I realized what DD-WRT is about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD-WRT#Controversy

The OpenWRT community is a bit more technical and far more competent.

And it's not clear that he has achieved anything himself (other than in business, perhaps).

I wouldn't touch his API even if it can measure a 10 foot pole.