I'd buy this except we have existence proof of how Apple solved this by instead making .app folders act special in the UI and having an /Applications folder you drag applications into.
A much more elegant solution and I think the criticism stands correct; Microsoft Research just didn't realize how to solve the problem and everything else is justification after-the-fact.
I'm not a mac guy - but I was playing some sts and for some reason my _data_ was embedded inside an Application which is kind of a package of files and I have to "unzip it" from a context menu to see the save games (but everything still functions the same).
That is, imo, awful. I'm not sold they've got everything right
A much more elegant solution and I think the criticism stands correct; Microsoft Research just didn't realize how to solve the problem and everything else is justification after-the-fact.