Although your call to arms is for flash developers, Josh, as a "former" flash developer, I'd like to chime in if you don't mind.

Certainly flash has problems with the search engines. Anyone who doesn't think so, isn't looking at SERP's.

I suspect this is more the fault of the algorithms than the designers but some if this fault lies with the ego entry page that has become such a pain on the web.

Can you imagine in the real world (you mean this isn't real?) telling someone they'll have to watch your crappy home movies before they can buy something from you?

All this aside, here's where I think Flash goes really wrong.

It takes a good bit of expertise to develop an fla file that can be converted into a swf file.

Sounds tidy but what does your client do when you jet off to Spain and decide to persue wine tasting for the rest of your life?

He's out in the cold.

We had this same problem a few years ago with Java and this powerful tool fell afoul of the public when folks were left by their web gurus and found they had tools they couldn't modify.

I liked it... even learned how to do it but it was too cumbersome for the general public and JavaScript eventually took over as a primary navigation tool.

Anyway, sorry for the lengthy ramble but my money says flash will stay around as long as it's a good little puppy and doesn't take over the whole site.

__________________
Jim
tourclare.com