One big problem with the laddering system (I know he doesn't intend to promote it) is that it encourages people to try to build the next Ruby-on-Rails. Whereas in the majority of cases, both the individual and the society are better off by taking an existing tool and doing gradual improvements to it.

No one gets to be "successful" by updating someone else's idea, though.

http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html "going through the bug list isn't fun; but rewriting everything from scratch is fun"