Great post Omar and overall I agree with your points. The one exception being your section on software projects. It is true that within a given paradigm features get added and added, but it is also true that paradigms shift, new abstractions are made and functionality exposed both to developers and end-users can become far simpler when the abstractions are really done well.

And also I think in most cases for enterprise, it isnt about shifting control over software features to the end-user, its about creating an open software ecosystem ... one that isnt handicapped by being limited by different platform camps for different vendors. and there is a 'giganto-hunormous' difference between a 'partner software ecosystem and the massive open software ecosystem that exists today for x86.

I actually think this is what killed SONA. Nothing against any vendor, but a robust software ecosystem is only going to emerge if all the players participate and play nice together (or are forced to play nice together). I hope a few years from now we all wake up to find a truly open software ecosystem for SDN.