Also, given that NeXT was bought for about 15% of Apple's market cap (after laying off most of their employees), it's disingenuous to imply that Apple == NeXT. What saved Apple was the iPod, not OS X and Cocoa.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1997/03/2596
edit: I want to add a couple points to my followup.
1. NeXT's hardware was a resounding flop. Their state-of-the-art factory turned out to be for naught. This is absolutely true.
2. That said, this mistake did not prevent NeXT from co-opting Apple and becoming the third largest company (by market cap) in the world.
3. Apple == NeXT: Apple was, pun intended, rotten. Steve Jobs and his most trusted lieutenants assumed key positions of power throughout Apple. The only highly visible and critical Apple employee I can identify who pre-dated Steve's return to Apple is Jony Ive. However, Ive was laboring in obscurity before Steve assumed his position as "iCEO" of Apple[1 and 2].
4. Arguably, the iMac saved Apple. In one of the recently-posted WWDC or Macworld keynotes, Steve addresses this point in quite a bit of detail. The iPod made Apple a veritable powerhouse...but not at first[3]. The iPhone made Apple, well, Apple. As it happens, the iPhone (and OS X, and the iPad) is the result of decades of engineering work that started at NeXT[4].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive#Career
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/091797apple.html
[3] http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/Apple-releases-iP...
[4] Or, to be pedantic, at CMU, where Mach was originally co-developed by Avie Tevanian, who later became the SVP of Software Engineering at Apple.
http://news.cnet.com/Apple-acquires-Next,-Jobs/2100-1001_3-2...
http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Apple_(AAPL)/Data/Market_Capi...
Again, I don't understand why you seem to think otherwise.
Although Apple acquired NeXT, in every meaningful way, NeXT consumed Apple.
edit: here we go: http://www.apple.com/ca/press/1997/08/NewBoD.html -- Steve convinced three of five to leave.
Fred Anderson, the CFO under Amelio, was kept on until the backdating scandal. He played a key role in saving Apple--they were almost cash broke when Amelio took over, and Anderson arranged a key bond issue to keep the company afloat.
BTW, I'm quit, HN is just becoming a place where Steve Jobs and Rails must not be criticized, even when they must be. I will put some random string as my password and never return here, it was a good time but I think the community lost something in these years.