NetBSD's philosophy of designing things well and doing The Right Thing
is what makes it stand out from the other PD OSs out there, and I believe
that it is the only way to go for a good OS. On the x86 market (xcuse the
sales term ;)) sticking to careful design and integration means that you
will lose out to others who are quicker to build in new features. Should
NetBSD care about that? Partly, because you do need some amount of fame
and popularity to stay alive.

However, the x86 world dominance won't last forever (I hope at least..),
and people will be looking for other systems sooner or later. And that's
where NetBSD is strong: with careful design and always keeping portability
issues in mind, it will be there and ready to be ported to new systems
quickly, if not already available for those other systems. This is why
it is very important, for example, that a PowerPC effort will succeed
soon. Of course, being able to do a port to a new kind of architecture
requires getting a system to do it on, and you may just need some
popularity on the x86 front for people to actually know about you
and wanting to give you a system. I mean, I don't suppose Linus
Torvalds got an Alpha to play with because DEC thought Linux was
such a brilliantly designed system. Then again, Chris already beat
him to it with NetBSD/alpha of course ;-)

I just wish I had a little more time and hardware myself, I'd love to
create a much better, mi installation procedure (wouldn't we all), 
and, and...

- Frank