java 1.4 has not had an official release. And I dread when it does. The java AIM is not an applet, it is a standalone java application and has been around even longer than gaim.
What's wrong with 1.4? I'm not as savvy in java as I am hardware/system-wise so I thought, generally speaking, that an updated java version would be a good thing. Are they changing some core component that screws something up or something like that? As far as java AIM, if that's a standalone application, why not just bundle it as another program? AFAIK, the java AIM client was a workaround for firewalls, allowing anyone behind a rather restrictive firewall to bypass it because it's part of web traffic (port 80). Lots of programs use that trick now, and it's getting interesting to see how rulesets for firewalls will work in the future.

The whole point on my support for trillian (for clarification only) is that trillian does nothing more than authenticate and pull a buddy list from a server. If people want to use AIM, they will as I've met a lot of people who use AOL and AIM and won't use anything else. However, if people are wanting to try other programs, there are a very limited few out there. Running an IM client with fast servers is very expensive, as stated earlier, but that's par for the course for a 'free' program (albeit, free with ads and other things) that's used for garnering other clients (income, as you put it). Maybe with the support Trillian's getting, they'll be able to put up servers themselves and then what? I would guess AIM programmers would then figure out how to pull clients from Trillian servers or cross-authenticate AIM with Trillian/etc. Would that then not be the same as what AOL is trying to prevent? I see AOL as the sulking kid in the corner right now, mad because they're not keeping 100% of the people on AIM/AOL. It's no surprise that they're in a 'fight' with MS right now over the browser frontend (AOL wants theirs up front, MS wants IE up front, to put it in very short terms).

Moral of the story: let everyone cross reference to everyone else. If IM clients are to be free and used to get other customers, then let the servers be used for authentication purposes only. And if Trillian does put up servers (unlikely), then I'll be telling everyone I know to switch to them, and I'll be getting off everything else.

Last note: MS has done plenty of nasty tricks like this to prevent other programs/applications from working on windows operating systems. Anyone have opinions on that? Netscape on 95 anyone?
That's a whole hell of a lot more anti-capitalistic than anything Trillian's ever done, that's for sure and AOL's 7.0 BSOD upon uninstallation isn't much better, rofl...