I agree this looks really cool. However, the practical side of me would much rather ditch the bling for snappy performance.

Wait -- they got bought by Google? Google bought a company that creates bling-y desktop software for Macs and Windows? Why is that, do you suppose? I can't imagine they're trying to put this on Android. I didn't think that Chrome OS (if that ever sees the light of day now that Android is our & the iPad is hot) would even have a desktop, but maybe I was wrong. If so, they could be going for a consistent Googly experience whether you're on Chrome OS or Windows or whatever. They could put their Google Gadgets on it.