I agree with your points, not your conclusions...
For the most part, when you're selecting a tool to make a web application, you should pick what you know best, like best, and maybe even what is most popular and best supported, or even handiest. I can't really fault a risk-averse Fortune 500 manager for choosing Vignette over Zope or ACS. Why would he choose them? He's never heard of them, it's a lot of work to do the research right, and his butt is on the line.
However, when creating the actual framework that allows other folks to create web applications, I don't think these constraints apply. We know our butts are on the line, and we are consciously taking a path we think suits us and allows us to produce the best software we can.
There is lots of technology in Zope that we created, yes. Most of these technologies are based on ideas that aren't really new, but that haven't been widely applied to web application development. Desipte this, we also interface with most popular and commonly-used web technologies (Oracle, Postgres, other SQL DBs, Apache, IIS, soon Perl, DOM, and some various XML technologies including XSLT). So I think we *do* support a lot of technologies that we didn't create.
In defense of the stuff we did create from scratch, I would also offer that if nobody ever created anything new, we'd still be using rocks to bash our grain to make flat bread. The folks here are without reserve the smartest people I've ever had the pleasure of working with, and I'm very happy to have the pleasure of seeing the stuff they've created establish a life of its own.
I respect your decision to stand on the shoulders of giants by using proven third-party technology to back ACS. We've done the same with lots of things in Zope. Other things we've created ourselves, and FWIW, I think they're fantastic.
