I should write it up. The short story is that I was losing my mind in an "Interactive Fiction" course I took as an elective within my major (Fiction Writing... I know, I know). I was self-taught in CSS, HTML, JavaScript but had never used Flash, which at the time was still fairly new. However, everything we were being exposed to in Flash was difficult for me to work through to do even the most basic action, so while I was particularly stumped on an issue I wrote the email (http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail51.html), intentionally using the word "website" in every sentence because I just thought it'd be funny.
Didn't occur to me til just now the irony of struggling with Flash and then writing to Strongbad, which was all done up in Flash.
I agree. It may be useful in certain web applications, but chances are it will end up being used for advertising and "effects" that are annoying and unwanted.
On the other hand, as with many web technologies, used judiciously this could be cool for interactive infographics and things like that...