There was an article a while back on HN about why web designers choose light grey on white background. Basically, it looks fine on their own monitor which has the contrast turned way up
Could be, if you can set up a millions of dollars regulatory apparatus to keep online some really old MMOs for the 100 people worldwide who want to play them, there's really nothing you can't regulate.
If you think about it, those who shape mainstream opinion on operating systems were always mostly bought off, and invested in the mainstream operating systems. That investment meant that a niche operating system like Plan9 or BeOS was never going to see wide support from the opinion shapers, even if those OSes had some interesting ideas.