A few questions I should not have to ask....

[steve harley]

they whom i call Jason Slack wrote:
> Maybe this whole concept is a great new piece of software I could work 
> on. I have some free time at this point.....Both points that i made 
> above could be in this application...

most will say don't get your hopes up, but i think the most 
viable approach to this, without any API help from Apple, is to 
work with the apps themselves -- in other words modify the 
application resources (plists) that specify the bindings that 
apps provide

to do this well, i'd suggest keeping a database of applications 
(possibly synced into an online database shared among all users) 
and setting up a mechanism to recognize new versions of apps; ie, 
your tool could register for notifications from the filesystem 
that new applications had been added, and on notification would 
reapply any changes required for that app, then reregister the 
application with LaunchServices

another approach, less general, is to preempt the mechanisms that 
apply application bindings; by building your own Open With 
contextual menu module for instance; or similarly to how Path 
Finder, to my mixed appreciation and annoyance, opens certain 
files like PDFs very quickly in its own viewers; this of course 
only works where one has the chance to decide how and whether to 
send an open event to the OS

in the end, while i still double-click or use Open With 
sometimes, i have gravitated strongly toward drag & drop with a 
few convenient tools such as LiteSwitch and Dragthing; haven't 
yet quite figured out how to send PathFinder's selected file to 
QuickSilver for an open with action