>> This could be the trigger for a new Preferences system. The  
>> current one
>> isn't that good, IMHO.

yes

>>
>> 	Ciao,
>>
>> 		Giovanni
>>
>
> Yes, Preferences should be limited to providing some kind of  
> registration
> machinery and basic UI and IO services rather than holding the  
> state of all
> possible packages.
>
> Maybe this can even be done with some kind of <#annotation: >
> (name is less-controversial than pragma).
> This way, if Preferences is in the image, it interprets the  
> annotations;
> if not, then no harm with Undeclared or something...

Yes annotations can give a nice registration mechanism.

Now the key problem is should the code be loadable in 3.7....
I think that it should not. You cannot improve a system that should  
be backward compatible.
Look at mac. they discard regularly old support and add new ones.

Stef