Personally, I think it'd be cool if they had the phone plug in not at the back but in place of the touchpad....that way the phone can act as a mouse and also extend the primary display

If Europe, in particular the UK, can pass more anti-copyright and tech-friendly laws, wouldn't it be a no-brainer for most startups/companies to move there?

But a bit of a problem for a company whose business model is based on copying everything online and worrying about the authors later.

i also imagine it to be quite difficult to garner industry support to develop apps on a (default) rooted phone

Why is that? You don't need root to pirate games. The only thing it does is marginally improve security for apps like Netflix.

It wouldn't have to be rooted by default. The ideal solution would be a USB tether + dev tool connection required to turn this on, so unsuspecting users aren't compromised by malicious apps.

So... a Nexus One or G1, basically.

Ideally root would be separate from bootloading unlocking.

Is that not already the case? Perhaps you're right. Seems like splitting hairs though.