Yes true. I will go as far as saying that it is just not IP or one of the many other Stardock software that has gone the way of the dodo that members should be concerned about. I predict customization in the next 10 years or maybe even less will be a thing of the past and people will have to get use to function over form. If you don't like the way a UI looks and won't use an operating system because of that reason alone you are going to be lost in the sea of unadaptiveness. Here is something that you may not know. Do you know that The owner of the customize.org site has pretty much abandoned the site. There are no longer any mods there, the site does not even have any contact links that work and the personal contact email address I have is dead. The owners name is Mark Lampert from Toronto and guess what he is co-owner of? the answer is Uken Games. Now I know customize.org is a different kettle of fish but the point being there are many who have abandoned anything to do with computer customization and have focussed their attention on other products that have a larger demand. Hyperdesk from the Skins Factory is another example that has not updated the software and then there are countless of smaller players such as Nick Decker abandoning sysmetrix because in his own words feels "it is no longer needed do to dwindling users" Those are just the facts folks so enjoy what you have now because unless something changes it is not going to last.
Customize.org was THE original and first 'skinning' site. It 'died' a very long time ago due to what could be best described as 'immature Administrators' who succeeded in alienating [most of] the original masters of skinning.
As with all things...."shit happens". What WAS the 'best skinning site" on the net was sold to eFront who managed to kill it within months. [that was skinz.org].
Deskmod died due to one too many database losses/hacks with the rising cost of hosting.
Deviantart was THE skinning site for a short time [months] until its real goal was realized...to become a general ART site [where skinning was essentially forgotten/lost amongst the photos of Fido].
All the others were/are quite small...essentially one-man sites.
Hyperdesk was a failed attempt by one person with 'attitude' to rival Stardock's GUI skinning software.
Nick simply should have charged for Sysmetrix and thus have a commercial incentive to continue. It's quite a competent proggy...
Skinning's origins in 95 and 98 [and quite a bit earlier too....I used to 'skin' the text cursor in Dos on a monochrome screen] had evolved to its peak probably around the turn of the millennium when there were literally HUNDREDS of skinnables, but it is quite safe to say that since the advent of an actually 'attractive' OS from Microsoft [Win 7] there has been less NEED to customize. Much of the older GUI software was essentially broken by 64 bit architecture as well as new explorer.exe functionality making updating them uneconomical/non-viable.
People who were around 15 plus years ago can [and do] lament the loss of the Golden Age of skinning, but as with all endeavours....there will be people still willing/wanting to improve/alter what is put before them as out-of-the-box-boring...
