[ank_the_elder]

I'm aware of svchost, however I'm not sure I agree with his comment about the technique being "outdated" without more information on what he meant precisely. Did he mean that...

using a monolithic process is outdated?

using a shared process is outdated?

using threads is outdated?

trying to conserve RAM in this fashion is outdated?

svchost in Windows in particular is outdated?

Starting services on a 'need to run' basis is outdated?

...and quite a few other options. It seems to me like all OSs have similar facilities, so I'm not sure what he means that would not apply to other OSs.

[mynameislegion]

This: 1) "trying to conserve RAM in this fashion is outdated?" and 2) "using a monolithic process is outdated?".

However the biggest problem with 2) is that you cannot see what individual thread(s) cause problems and you cannot easily kill/restart the offending DLL.