You simply can't rip out a UI convention like that. Think about how many browsers there are. Virtually all of them use the back button and an URL bar. Say you made a browser without those, with an innovative new navigation system. Think it'll catch on? Extremely unlikely.
When you take out one of the oldest conventions in the book, people are going to use it for five seconds, 95% of them will decide they hate it, and will simply use what they're used to.
Consider iTunes 10. iTunes 10, released only a week or so ago, changed the UI in a minor way. Somewhat minor, anyway. Here's a screenshot: http://cl.ly/2OWb
Now, this looks a little different to your average Mac OS X app. Judging by my twitter feed, about 80% of my followers changed the window controls back to the old style (http://cl.ly/2ODf) as soon as the option became available.
They did this despite the fact that it makes sense. Having the controls vertically saves space and provides an extra thirty pixels (or so) to view their music.
Making sense doesn't matter in even rather minor UI changes like that. Like the old adage, a frog put in boiling water will jump straight out, but a frog being boiled will never notice.
Consistency is key when it comes to UI conventions, and it's _extremely_ hard to change the tide. The only way to do it is if other leading people do it also.
For example, Opera started using tabs on top at about the same time as Chrome did (don't quote me on that, I'm trying to make a point). Then Safari tried it, and now Firefox 4 has tabs on top as well. The only way to facilitate change is to not be alone in making it.
Furthermore! "Some sort of bookmark/search/wiki replacement navigation system needs to be developed." Do you have any ideas as to how to implement that? (I'd honestly love to hear them, I'm not trying to bee too much of a sanctimonious dick. ;))