> a web without typography freedom is not a web I want, or would value.

You wouldn't value a web without typographic freedom? That sounds pretty extreme. Are you a designer for whom the web is canvas, rather than a non-designer for whom the web is primarily a source of information?

I've been using the web for twenty years, and typographic freedom is fairly low on my list of priorities. But I'm not a designer.

I think in hast, my wording wasn't as specific as it should have been. My point is: I don't value the opinion that it is not important. Not when you see what happens without it. It's pure fallacy to suggest that web fonts are the problem - when the pressure should be on finding a creative way to resolve the issue (i.e. just display the next available in the font-family list until downloading is complete, or read-ahead meta data that includes kerning, width, height and size, so the layout can modulate well).

The choice of type conveys a lot about a brand, lets not forget that.

30 seconds followed by nothing at all is not an uncommon experience. For a freakin' blog entry. (As often as not I have to read using View->Source.) If you figure load times rivalling, say, launching Photoshop and frequent failed loads is reasonable for a text page, then maybe the web isn't where you want to be after all.

>30 seconds followed by nothing at all is not an uncommon experience

really? because i spend a lot of time on the web and i've never seen that. You might want to check for problems at your end.

I agree with you on the JS front. Looking at you Yahoo mail -> and the user menu.