The $99.99 TouchPad phenomenon, in your words: There's only one problem with Chris Ziegler's grand vision:

"And thus would begin the virtuous cycle: users lead to developers, which lead to apps, which lead to users. The tablet market would presumably be larger overall, and HP would’ve owned a chunk of it. Granted, that chunk would’ve come at a monumental operating cost, but right now, tablet vendors urgently need to be thinking in terms of generational platform leadership..."

The issue, of course, is that for this virtuous cycle to get rolling, the product in question has to work well. Maybe HP could have shipped several patches, improving performance and fixing bugs, and then discounted the price going into the holidays. But of course, now we'll never know.

HP: webOS Still Coming to PCs and Printers, Pre3 Launching: More from the "HP doesn't know what they're doing" file:

Still, DeWitt maintains that webOS is not dead.

“At the end of the day, webOS is going to be a popular platform on a variety of connected devices,” said DeWitt.

Translation: webOS is dead.

Will Jon Rubinstein and Todd Bradley Stick With HP?: Kara Swisher examines the possibilities for some top HP execs, if HP decides to spin their PC and webOS divisions into separate companies.