Yeah, the university environment has the "mine" attitude at the desktop
level.  That is just a fact of life.  We need those people to educate our
future.  But, if they would just spend 1 minute of discussion with the
students that corporate discipline and university creativity are separate
and unrelated, they would be 2 years ahead of the game before they send out
their resume.  The first thing we look for in selecting candidates is
discipline.  We do not need, not invented here types.  We need creativity,
discipline, and control.  We answer to stockholders and auditors.

If Microsoft and the UNIX software vendors built this discipline into the
design of their products we would not worry about the software being mixed
with the data.

I would bet that your desktop "my image" issue would go away if you could
use a common image on the restore that integrates their data as well as
their preferences so they have no idea a new image was used.  If they say
they are installing their own stuff and it does not match then the
technology to prevent duplicate saves is of no use anyway.

I guarantee you if we tell Bill Gates we will buy it if he builds it, he
will build it and sell it to us.  Same with the UNIX software vendors.
Might I suggest that a OS design forum for the vendors to discuss how to
take us down that path might be in their best interest just because we will
buy it.