Why should Firefox support plug-ins at all, if not to compensate for a lack of features? Why should Emacs support scripting, if not to compensate for a lack of features?

The point is that we enjoy FF plug-ins and Emacs scripts because they allow us to customize these "featureless" products to our individual needs. Similarly, I welcome plug-ins like Linkification and Scriptmonkey because they allow me to customize websites to my individual needs.

I would be surprised if this were the only website that you would find the Linkification plug-in useful for!

How about installing a plugin to compensate for the lack of a feature on several disconnected websites all around the world? You can't really convince every single page out there to auto-link, but I'm sure you will come across a plaintext URL now and again.

I like how Safari handles it. Select the text, right-click, and select "Go to Address". I believe this works on any text in any Cocoa app as well. EDIT: I now see that Safari's behavior was mentioned in another thread before I posted.