I fully expect this to be the case, as the data layout on disk is one of the "tricks" they will have evolved, and will not want to share with any competitors.

You really think that's the case? I'm not sure that on an EOL product, the layout of particular bits of information is all that much of a trade secret. I could be wrong, maybe they're sharing the same data structures with other living products... But I've found that, while the guys aren't spending their time advertising the formats or publishing them, they've been very helpful in casually pointing at a given area and saying "reverse engineer away, young man."

So, by all means, we should take advantage of any knowledge of the current layout, and just plan on having to do it "the hard way" when it all gets pulled out from under us.

Fellas, is Mark correct? Do you anticipate having to be more guarded about stuff like this in the v3 timeframe due to similarity to other products?