> Switching architectures would necessitate some changes to the
> operating system itself

So far, so good.

> increasing complexity and slowing it down.

That's what I still don't understand. Could you go into more detail please?

> My reasoning lies in watching BeOS go from the BeBox to intel. I had
> the chance to test drive a rare BeBox once and BeOS was noticeably
> faster than it was on my intel P2 system. I really was disappoointed too,
> that later versions of the system became excessively complex.

I could as well argue that this is just the way BeOS went, regardless of the architecture switch, so that it would have followed the same trend if it kept to PPC, going the way from G2 to G3 to G4 and finally to G5. Besides, you cannot generalize from one example. MorphOS could just as well be a counter-example. Following your logic, MorphOS shouldn't go the G5 Mac route. After all, G5 is faster than G4, automatically leading to the OS getting more bloated due to "more half a**ed coding", right? And ask yourself if MorphOS really got more bloated on its way from 200 MHz G2 (PowerUP) to 1500 MHz G4 (Mac mini).

> I aim to keep things as simple as possible.

Me too, but for the software side, not for the hardware side. Else I wouldn't have switched from a Pegasos I to a Mac mini G4.

> I'm sure we will soon find a solution without needing a HW switch.

If by "HW switch" you mean "ISA switch", then yes, it would be ideal without it. But that would require a hardware switch (or rather move) to another (and preferably faster) PPC platform after G5 Mac. I hope that such platform will arise, suited to run a desktop OS like MorphOS, even if it would obligatorily mean that MorphOS becomes more bloated ;-P