what does http have over a an ip/port combo with a stream under it?

WHY COULDN'T WE STICK WITH TCP. it was FINE.

we should've built a transparent pipe around tcp/ip such that everything was encrypted between endpoints, no matter what overlying protocol is being used. xml and json are slightly more structured than random strings on the wire i guess, but if you don't need recursively structured data I think you're fine with a key-value pair in the old plaintext ways a-la http, smtp

we shouldn't have built an encryption layer so high up on the stack.

we shouldn't have built a serialization layer so high up on the stack

http/html/browsers shouldn't have been so isolationalist. they disallow any sort of interop with other protocols, which forces other protocols to be rebuilt on top of http

accept-content is rarely used

content-type is rarely used

don't even get me started on the application distribution discussion. get your applications packaged if they're so important. or ship a java applet.