Quite a lot of work went into it. It is designed for 10k insertion cycles. 2x stronger to wrenching forces than micro, and it is designed so the cables fail, not the machine side connector (because once factories get up to speed have similar costs to USB micro cables now at least for dumb cables). Have a slide deck as a pdf if you want more details:

https://intel.lanyonevents.com/sf14/connect/fileDownload/ses...

Current USB connectors have prongs in the middle of the female side as well, but I've never ever seen one break off before, and that's with people (including myself) trying to force plugs in the wrong orientation. Is there a reason to worry about these new connectors' prong strength?

Maybe it depends on who builds your devices, but I have had several usb prongs break off on me even when I was careful. This happened on one desktop and several gaming consoles.

I'll add another question: Does USB-C have a spec for requesting additional wattage?

Example: I have a USB-C Printer/Hard drive/or otherwise, and plug in my MacBook Air, will it charge my MacBook or will I need an intermediate like a specialty hub to charge?

This seems egregious if every device needs to provide power for the potential of charging device in question...

There's actually a supplemental spec, USB-PD(Power Delivery) which now accopmanies USB 3.0 and addresses this. It is carried over the USB physical layer but does not rely on the data layer for communication.

According to what I can find[1][2], USB 3 supports 100W and a standard C connector supports 5A.

[1] http://www.usb.org/press/USB_Type-C_Specification_Announceme...

[2] http://www.usb.org/press/presskit/USB-IF_IDF_Shenzhen_2014_P...

It does, but it's not a requirement for all devices so you may or may not need a hub to provide power back to the laptop depending on the device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_Power_Delivery

To answer more specifically; yes— not only is every node in the bus network addressable for power needs and capabilities, even each of the two ends of a cable is a separately addressable node (mostly used to figure out which way a swappable cable is oriented, I think).

Another way to look at it is that the pins (which are really the fragile bit prone to scratching, oxidization etc) aren't exposed that way, they're protected inside the metal wrapper.

>I am a bit on the fence about them seemingly jettisoning the lighting connector? Why go with a plug that has a delicate prong in the center rather than a plug with the contacts around the perimeter?

My biggest gripe about the USB-C, and a big fuck up on the part of the standards committee, IMO

It will just be so nice to have the port be standardized.