The first not 80x86 32 bit processor

[Brynet-Inc]

At the level of transistors on silicon, yes, it's getting lots uglier. Even at the software level, it's getting a little uglier. As intel adds modes, there have to be new registers and techniques to allow you to change between modes. Yes, people want backwards compatibility for awhile -- but the demand fades over time. It is also true that from an engineering standpoint, you always reach a point with every product where it could benefit greatly by reengineering it from the bottom up. If the tradeoff were backwards compatibility vs. 4 times the speed, more people would switch.

I think they tried that with the Pentium 4 (NetBurst) and the Itanium, both were/are epic failures.. IMHO.

[bewing]

Yes, but that is because neither was any real improvement on the original, and it will probably take 20 years before backwards compatibility loses its usefulness -- so they did it too soon.