I didn't know that ``making inroads on the desktop'' was what made something better.

I don't think that X is much more of a pig than MS Windows' GUI is. And I have the option of not running it.

Also, there are multiple depths of OS integration. There's MS Windows' and MacOS 9's idea, where it's pretty much one-and-the-same. There's MacOS X's, where it's the only one, but it's not 100% required to make the OS run. There's X's, where it's related to the OS no more than any hardware accessing application. And there's XFree86's, where you can have some hardware drivers in the kernel closely related to the GUI. I think that the correct approach is the middle ground where MacOS X and XFree86 are. (Not that their approaches are very similar -- convergent evolution, I suppose.)