Following on my last post, I note that Jakob Neilsen says pretty much the same thing in Chapter 3 of his new book "Prioritizing Web Usability". He refers to the document "Guidelines for designing user interface software, ESD-TR-86-278" created by the US Air Force in 1986. He says that he retested 60 of these guidelines in 2005 and found 54 that continued to be valid! A strong vote in favour of recycling and reuse. Indeed, I remember how the Flash designers in my last job relied heaviliy on those guidelines for creating e-learning applications.