"Immediately, I realized even if I could get Twhirl to install, this was impossible with Chrome OS. There seems to be no concept of minimizing your browser, much less letting it take up less than the entire screen."
He's trying to install desktop software and minimize the browser in a browser based OS. That he can't do what he wants is central to the entire strategy of the OS.
I tried to install Twhirl out of curiosity, to see what would happened. I didn't expect it to work. It didn't. But it was interesting to try. Sometimes you discover things that way.
If you're with the press, shouldn't you - more than other people even - research things?
External monitors increase productivity. Plenty of people use them, and use them with laptops. Right now, this can't run both the internal and external monitor. Google tells me that will change.
People might have owned only one computer (if any) in 1998, today it is very easy to afford many computers and computer-like devices. (You can basically buy two cheap laptops for the price of one middle of the road 1998 desktop.) Am I the only one who constantly sees some kind of laptop (the second or even third computer in the household) in all kinds of (non-techie) living rooms and kitchens? People want to be able to quickly check the weather, the news, that route, their emails and random stuff without leaving the living room.
I can’t speak for other households but for my parents their cheap living room laptop is the main computer in the household. They use it constantly to go online or read emails, the nice expensive desktop in the office gets hardly ever used.
Netbooks running Chrome OS and tablets (like the iPad) are perfectly capable of replacing those living room laptops. In that sense, sure, Chrome OS is a good candidate for replacing certain computers. The key word is certain.