As someone that makes their living motivating, encouraging, counseling and coaching 160 associates every work day, I have come to appreciate the force of positive, constructive feedback. That being said, one still needs to keep a 2x4 in the toolkit for special occasions ;-)
PalmOne is struggling, that I understand. The pressure to constantly release new units to keep up with competition has got to be intense. But regardless of "why" (split companies, bad blood, collusion issues) one of the two need to actively support the providers of key, 3rd party applications. These programs are the life blood of the OS and arguably a part of PalmSource / PalmOne business model. To introduce a new unit that significantly changes how programs interact with the machine's memory without an agressive campaign to inform and educate software developers is an act of either apathy, negligence, sabotage or a combination of all three!
Flame? No, I agree with your thoughts. Make extremely uncomfortable in a nice way? That's more of what I had in mind.
Regards,
Jeff G