You make a good point. The design is costly and bad, I hope I wasn't arguing to retain it for historical reasons or anything like that. I do believe that the history of how PGP got there, and how its ecosystem became the sort of hydra that it is should be kept in mind for anyone trying to build a replacement.
The commercial factors that drove the engineering there I think is a real risk for any cryptosystem implementor, especially if they are trying to build or retain a userbase.
