i'll come clean on another front: my fondness for freebsd/linux/mozilla is more because of what [i believe] they embody than because of usability and functionality (there is another reason: my own background leads me to choose unix-like OSs for technical reasons). i think open source, *even* if it lacks the features of proprietary stuff, is valuable for more important reasons (collective effort, etc). i am a part (or at least can be) of the making of the things i use. this sort of sentimental primitivism is terribly unfashionable, i am afraid, on this list.
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Now you're talking muchacho.
And yes, you're right about the testiness that bubbles to the surface like, er, bubbles on the methane seas of Titan when, as you phrase it, "sentimental primitivism" is unmasked.
I remember, as if were months and months ago ('cause it was), when I mentioned how cool I thought the Mars rovers were -- a good dollop of hard science and real-life space adventure. Gods oh ye gods it wasn't 15 minutes before I was hit with headlines like 'Starving Kids' and 'Waste of Resources' and 'Childish Space Scientists Easily Impressed By Rocks' and 'Male Inadequacy On Display...Again' and so on and so on and so on till I needed an Advil.
Couldn't even sit back, for just a few, and enjoy the "sentimental primitivism" of the moment: seeing a bit of the surface of a faraway place close up and almost live.
Just as I've decided to stop giving Microsoft props for doing things with its monopoly (like praising fill-in-the-name-of-your-fave-tyrant for making the trains run on time) I've also decided that what's needed within me is a hot and sloppy marriage of sentimental primitivism with hard headed analysis.
Wide Eyed Enthusiasm, meet Skeptical Analysis. Get busy.
.d.