Bingo! QuickTime 3, as ancient as it is, met or exceeded Flash's capabilities until just a few years ago, but few web developers ever used QuickTime for anything beyond simple video playback. Superior features lost to development simplicity. Macromedia Flash (the application) was less expensive, more widely available, better known, and easier to pick up and use than LiveStage Pro. Even if HTML5 becomes a viable Flash competitor technically, it will take one heck of a good, free, multi-platform, point-and-click development application for it to compete with Flash already coming right along with Photoshop and Illustrator in Adobe's product suites.
On Flash: after that post on the Flash blog was shown that only two of the sites in question were wholly dependent on Flash I'm surprised anyone "in the know" is still making the "what will replace flash" argument. CNN, NYT, Youtube and the now infamous Bang Bros sites all accessible without flash. Hulu has dumb execs who tried to block Boxee because of some nebulous threat to it's bottom line will try to hold out. but when millions of their customers are on devices that cannot access their website lets see what they do.