Yeah they are a shit design. A lot of things on the GBA1000 were a shit design, especially choice of parts and placement of some parts.
Yeah, so here's the thing. I doubt you'd say that to Georg Braun's face. Or maybe Andrew Wilson, a fellow Aussie, over the Phoenix board? What point would that serve? To insult people trying to make our lives better? You're obviously very intelligent and talented, but I don't think we need to go acidic.
We are a tiny community here and we like it to be a safe place, a place after work to get together and hang out and talk about one of our common passions - Amiga, Commodore, hacking, "maker-ing," retro-computing and retro-gaming in general. I think about these "waste of time" topics way more than I probably should, but it's a place that brings me and others here a lot of happiness.
So, even if you didn't like the design 100%, let's at least show the creators of the boards (or whatever) some respect for trying to solve problems their way. It's a lot easier to tear things down than build them up from scratch.
I'm pretty sure in the next year if (hopefully) the Rejuvenator comes back to the market, I'm going to be called a complete idiot and total ass from people all over the world that I've never met. The board will be called complete crap and a waste of time and money. And there will be lists generated about all the things wrong with it, for that I am sure. Heck, we already know some of them. Some will quickly forget all about the engineering miracle it provides and only focus on the short-comings.
But until
someone else creates something it's what we'll have. I do plan on releasing all of our files for other smart folk to improve upon the original (and our) hard work. Creative commons, etc. And you know what?
Take a screenshot of this: I will bet you money others will take those files and try to charge for future revisions they make to them no matter how minor (and possibly just to print them out verbatim). That's kind of what we seem to have in parts of this big, beautiful, and sometimes self-inflicting corrosive community. It's bizarre. But I also know a small subset will keep the spirit of our original intent intact and move things forward for the community at large to enjoy. I know, because I've become friends with some of these people. Heck - you may become one of them.
But man. Let's be cool. Let's try and change the culture. Everyone here is here because we were looking for a place to hang and not find all the negativity. There's so much of that out there already. Let's spread the Amiga Love, friend.
Cheers