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Let me know when you can do apps like picnik or buzzword in JavaScript, CSS and DHTML without having a nightmare of browser incompatabilities to work around.

but a web browser should still be a relatively lightweight application by itself...i should be able to have a web browser running in the background while i'm working in Photoshop, Illustrator, or other memory-intensive applications.

The idea behind Chrome is that "under the hood, [Google is] able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better".

In other words, if you want a lightweight browser that can simply browse simple web pages, there probably are better browsers out there. But Google is saying (and I agree) that as time goes on, browsers are being asked to do more and more, and we need something a little better to serve not just as a lightweight web surfing application, but an actual application platform itself. Pretty soon, your Photoshop, Illustrator, and other memory-intensive applications will probably run within your browser, not as stand-alone applications on your OS of choice. (In fact, Adobe has already launched an online "express" version of Photoshop with some photo editing capabilities that are limited, but well within the realm of what used to be handled by stand-alone applications. And Adobe is not alone in doing this.)

Some people disagree, and say that a web browser should be a web browser and leave other applications stuff to, well, applications. I can see advantages both ways. Javascript, Flash, Silverlight, or whatever your Web 2.0 platform of choice is aren't the most robust of development of platforms, but that may change over time. Browsers will undoubtedly get more bloated, but as long as it's not as fast as low-end computer capabilities grow, I don't really see that as a problem. And of course, most of these platforms (well, most not developed by the company that has a vested interest in you being locked into its operating system) will work under any OS. In the end, I guess it just boils down to what all you'll be asking of your web browser. Fortunately, web browsers tend to play nice with each other and you have choices galore for which one(s) best suit your needs.

Sounds kind of like Picnik, which provides free basic photo editing and is integrated directly into Flickr. It's pretty handy for doing some tweaks on your photos. Picnik has some advanced, paying-account-required features, though, so maybe Photoshop Express will be better in that regard.

All three examples fail to load properly.

I'm not sure what I am waiting for but http://www.picnik.com/ doesn't do anything, http://maps.yahoo.com/ offers a few links at the top and nothing else. http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/home.jsp?locale=en_US does load, but there's a big hole where I guess the flash should be.

This is not a troll, I just wanted to see how good your good sites are, pretty bad is the answer.

Too bad you are just coming out as a troll saying "X sucks because I saw it here and here and it was annoying blah blah". Flash is not suited for all types of websites but luckily that thing was understood years ago by anyone working on the "web thingy".

If you actually pull your head out of the sand then you will see that people have actually started making good content using flash and the fugly era of shiny flash intros for websites is dead for the most part. Maybe you may want to take a look at Yahoo! Maps, Harley website, Picnik or the rest of the bunch where the flex framework is actually being put to good use. But I suppose its easier to just bitch about how the things were a decade back without even checking if anything has changed now.

Disclaimer: I have worked on the flash projects in the past and currently getting into flex for a new project so I maybe a bit biased.

I call bull on "run identically in all major browsers and operating systems".
Actually they meant "IE, Firefox and Safari on Win and Mac OS". Even on Windows, only one of four Apps really works in Opera (Adobe's own Flex showcase gets caught up in my popup blocker, the VW thingie doesn't work at all, Buzzword serves up an "unsupported Browser" error. Picnik works).

Take a look at http://www.picnik.com/ for an idea how close to the simpler end of PhotoShop you can get, today, for free, without Adobe's code base and experience with both PhotoShop and Flash/Apollo/FutureWhateverTheyCallItToday.

It's Adobe/Macromedia, it will have a Flash front end. To get a taste, try this.