fair point. actually, i think i may have misunderstood the problem. ssh can tunnel anything, so whatever new protocol is devised, it should actually work though ssh.

also i am not disputing that a new system could not be decoupled. i am just concerned that it should not be required to work with ssh if that becomes a limiting factor.

architecture astronautitis is certainly bad, but maybe it's possible to create an implementation with a limited subset of features that are actually practical.