> I know v4 is already being planned with isolation of various
> components into separate packages

Excellent idea. May I also suggest that separate package(s) be created for
designtime only and keep runtime packages runtime only? This can be
important for application writers (IBO users) who compile and distribute
their applications with runtime packages.

Also with respect to people deploying runtime packages, may I also suggest
that the structure of the packages be well defined (keeping logically
separate sets of components in separate packages) so that people are not
tempted to roll their own. If you look at Borland's runtime packages
supplied with Delphi 5, for example, I could imagine that some packages
could be split. But I wouldn't do it because I consider their structure a
quasi standard and expect them to appear on many users' hard disks already.
Every component vendor should IMHO realize this and provide as fine
packaging as makes sense logically because what they release should be and
often is considered a standard.

As an extreme example to clarify my point: imagine that I want to distribute
a small console application using IBObjects. To distribute it with the whole
IBO_D5.bpl in its current state, containing all the GUI components, would
seem too much to me. On the other hand, I would not decide to create a
custom package containing only the units needed for my application, because
the users may already have IBO_D5.bpl installed on their computers, so my
package would contain duplicated code, and therefore waste users' hard disk
space.

Cheers,

TOndrej