Agreed... it's easy to envision scenarios where Linux would have fallen off completely back in the 90's. (After all, Linus' original goals were 'better than Minix' and 'learn about the 80386').

> Years of successful project management are many small hits, not just one big hit.

It sounds like maybe "one trick pony" might be closer to what Linus was getting at. Being a one trick pony is better than being a one-hit wonder, but Linus has shown he's got at least a couple of tricks. :-)