[Tuna-Fish]

I would just like to point out that IA64 wasn't really a significant step up. VLIW is a good idea for DSPs and GPUs and whatnot, but for the kind of dynamic, branchy code that we all know and love, IA-64 was quite probably the only somewhat modern CPU arch that was actually worse than x86.

[InclinedPlane]

I'm not so sure about that. Modern IA64 compilers and systems are actually pretty damned decent. Though the fact that they are still only comparable to a monstrous, teetering pile of hacks and kludges (x86) is not much of a recommendation.