Well, I have a different view. "It should be considered a dead end" is an opinion from the perspective of "what software should do." Mine comes from an acknowledgment of limiitations imposed by "what is available." These are quite different things (I wish it were not so!).

For 68000 machines like the Plus, there really are very few options. I contacted the author of wannabe a couple of years ago. Suffice it to say that it seems unlikely that we will be given sufficient access to the source to turn it into what we'd like. Maybe he would reconsider now, but that was his polite turndown then (and he is most polite).

I managed to track down the author of Samba (not an easy task), who was surprised and delighted that there remains interest in what he did so long ago. Alas, he's changed jobs and machines enough that he no longer has the source code, and has no idea where it might be.

That really leaves only MacLynx, whose source was once available freely. And not everyone has access to shell accounts (and having to run a terminal program adds a further level of remoteness and unfamiliarity).

But given that no one wants to undertake this project anyway, this is all for naught. Just adding to global warming to irritate Al Gore...