SWF was simultaneously brilliant and a festering wound that required amputation, and I would have welcomed a replacement that wasn't the biggest attack surface on the internet. I too love Homestar Runner.
IMO the fact that it belonged to Adobe was the biggest problem, if SWF had been managed by a more capable software org it could have been maintained in a way that kept it from getting banned from the internet. And remember, that's how bad it was - it got banned from the internet because it was absolutely indefensible to leave it around. SWF getting cancelled magically stopped every single family member I have from calling me with weird viruses and corruption they managed to stumble into. I saw more malicious code execution through SWF than I saw from my dumb little cousins torrenting sus ROMs and photoshop crackers. I'd rather not have it than have those problems persist.
IMO the fact that it belonged to Adobe was the biggest problem, if SWF had been managed by a more capable software org it could have been maintained in a way that kept it from getting banned from the internet. And remember, that's how bad it was - it got banned from the internet because it was absolutely indefensible to leave it around. SWF getting cancelled magically stopped every single family member I have from calling me with weird viruses and corruption they managed to stumble into. I saw more malicious code execution through SWF than I saw from my dumb little cousins torrenting sus ROMs and photoshop crackers. I'd rather not have it than have those problems persist.