I agree with your focus on systems-design, rather than building around tools. I recently posted this in the “Evernote Bandaid” thread:
I think the key to good systems is deciding what we want from the information we are collecting. We already know there is something about the information we want to have access to “forever.” To improve future accessibility and the ability to extract the important insights from that information, the focus should not be on the act of keeping it but on the why we want to keep it. Systems built to maximize our ability to do the things that come out of answers to that why question, enable us to synthesize and make better use of this information we are keeping.
NB: If this comes off as a little too abstract, let me know and I’ll work to clarify it. I was trying to be practical (not philosophical), but I didn’t want to bog readers down with specific examples that matter to me but that might not be relevant to their needs.