hate to chime in as well, but i think replacing the Windows shell should definitely be something that's looked at. imho it makes a lot of sense. face it, the Windows shell sucks.
why are we replacing their apps and adding our own (dolphin kicking explorer's butt)? because the default ones are terrible. honestly i see that as the point of running kde. whether or not it's optional is something else, but it lets people who love kde, hate windows, but are forced to use it (me especially)..have that much more bearability(pft, what do you mean it isn't a word?). just like we run apps in wine so that we don't have to boot out of our precious kernels and workspaces and apps, the same should be equally sought after. if a non-linux "port" is going to be done at all -- do it all the way, the right way, imho. just go ahead and ask me about all of the annoyances that it really brings on me -- honestly, i could rant on for days about flaws from little to small that really make me loathe having to be in windows for another second. the way i see it, KDE helps alleviate that, and plasma is awesome (explorer is just a sad thing imho). and i'm certain there are tons of other users who are forced to use windows because of apps x y and z which aren't possible in a VM or wine. while i'm not necessarily for the "port to windows", just because i see it as sort of taking away the uniqueness of linux and leaving the "why bother switching?"...but i also see the other side as well, and appreciate the port. kuiserver shouldn't be difficult to cut out of the picture. it just requires mapping of e.g. the plasma dataengine directly to kio when kuiserver is not going to be "enabled".. -- Shaun Reich, KDE Software Developer (kde.org)