Time for laptop manufacturers to rid of expresscard BS

The expresscard isn't there to replace USB's and other I/O. It is there for EXPANSION. You can ADD more firewire ports, more USB ports, etc.
YOU get to CHOOSE instead of letting manufacturers choose for you.

Personally I am for Expresscard. I'd like the choice of what additional I/O's I want.

Totally. Because downloading a 40GB Bluray is totally fun to do.... Let's just give people subpar quality and have them pay retail price (Itunes anyone?).

 

You might as well get rid of the headphone/mic slots too and just use a USB DAC to it. But me, I'd still like ExpressCard and an ODD (at least it's replaceable with another HDD or even a modular battery - if only they made battery usage smarter with the primary battery).

 

Because even if it were widely adopted, someone, somewhere will choose to use their own port instead rendering the whole concept moot.

 

For desktops, yeah. You don't get to choose a smaller laptop build instead of useless ports if you go for performance laptops.

I mean by the time computer blu-ray disks have been mainstream for a while, we will probably be buying movies on USB sticks.

 

Not really useless. There are certain photography equipment which only use firewire, others require 2+ USB's just by themselves. Other equipment requires min firewire (cameras).
Now let's say everyone does make the change to USB 3.0, and there are ONLY USB devices.
If one were to put only four USB 3.0 you have a problem, but putting anymore can lead to bigger thermal problems. Now chipsets haves a limit of how many USB's can be put on a chipset. Most chipsets have a limitation of 12 USB's, however most motherboards can only support 5 maybe 6 due to power limitations (2.5w each USB X 12, figure in the efficiency lost, say 3w a pop= ). That is 36 watts just for USB 2.0, now USB 3.0 is@ 5.4~w, say after efficiency loss total pull power is 6w~. 12x6w=72w for USB's. You will have dead USB ports, a dead motherboard, or dead DC jack or power adapter very very quickly.

Most laptops already can't do a full 2.5w load without the USB dying off. Anyone who uses notebook coolers could add to this. It was true on my gateway m6862, Gateway NV53-54, HP DV4-6-9 and plenty other notebooks.
Let's not forget the limitation of USB, it can only handle so many operations at a time, which is one reason why keyboards have a limit of up to 6 keys to be registered when all are pressed (most don't even reach the 6 key limit in practical use).