Can a Composite Application look as good?

Peter Presnell blogged yesterday about another alternative for a rich client user interface of the discussion template. This version uses 'classic' Notes application development features so that this application could be used in Notes 6, 7 and 8 basic. He also gives an introduction to the discussion template and describes the key scenarios:

As mentioned earlier we also have another prototype that leverages Notes 8.5.1 features like Java Views, Composite Applications and XPages on the client. The goal of these two alternative prototypes is to determine which technologies we should use for the next generation discussion template rich client user interface. We'll have to determine how to use these prototypes and which parts going forward. We might decide to only use one, we might merge ideas from both together in one UI or we might even provide two alternative rich client user interfaces.

Here is an update on the Composite Applications/XPages/Java Views prototype:

The design goals of the Composite Applications/XPages/Java Views prototype were:
1. Provide a rich user interface leveraging typical Notes rich client features like view navigation and rich text editing
2. Provide a consistent user experience to other PIM apps (mail, contacts, notebook)
3. For the key scenario 'create response' minimize the switching of pages to see other documents
4. For the other key scenario 'read thread' allow easy navigation within the thread
5. Provide a rich client UI for a 1024 pixel resolution, but also allow users with higher resolutions to benefit from their resolutions

So the goal of the Composite App prototype was not to add any new features like sticky notes, ratings, resources, etc. which is what the classic app dev prototype has. This prototype only shows the same 8.5 discussion template features with another user interface. But even though it is not that easy to compare the two prototypes, we'd appreciate your feedback to both of them. Again, your feedback will help us to determine how to move forward.