When you hot-swap a VGA cable you generally won't have a visible display if you switch to a monitor that can't handle the resolution you were just outputting to the previous monitor. Unless things have changed in this respect, hot-swapping only worked perfectly (resolution didn't matter) with digital connections, at least on ATI Mac hardware. I can't speak for the Windows drivers and firmware.
I've never tried plugging a device that was outputing a higher resolution DVI signal than the display device could accept. It is the display device that does the "magic" in this case though.
The rest, HDCP and single/dual link aren't concerns for most people out there. Dual link only matters if you're trying to drive a dual-link display. HDCP is only going to matter when you're playing back protected content on a platform that implements the protection.
HDCP seems to get automatically enabled if it can do it. I've not worked out how you can change it in either OSX or Windows.
VGA also doesn't look as good and for me that's more than a little big important.
True. On my desktop I use DVI. The issues with my hotplugging are mainly from occasionally unplugging the desktop and plugging in my PS3.
Every Mac can output to VGA from its DVI-I connector with a dongle if necessary. I'm assuming any clone notebooks offering only a DVI port offer the same capabilities, no?
Nope. Some are DVI-D only.
I like to have at least one system around with legacy ports, but I don't want a notebook with a serial port nor parallel port on it either. I wouldn't mind it if Apple would have kept the S-Video port on their notebooks though, since it allowed using two external displays and turning off the built-in. Now you're limited to using the notebook's own display if you want to connect to an NTSC/PAL monitor at the same time.
I'd actually like to have a serial port and parallel port still. I'm not bothered about the S-Video port at all. Total opposite of you
Lots of embedded devices still use a serial port for various reasons. I could use a USB dongle but its just a hassle to have to remember to lug that around and it doesn't always work properly either.
I've got plenty of device programmers and other odd devices that require a real parallel port and not the USB printer port dongles.
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