Re: point #2: An electronic lab notebook system (that researchers will actually use) is, literally, the holy grail of laboratory informatics. This particular grail sits at the end of a road littered with the corpses of dozens of failed attempts; all either too complex, too simple, too hard to use, not generic enough, too generic, etc. etc. etc.

Someday, somebody'll figure out how to do it, and when they do, it'll be amazing... but I'm not placing any bets on when it might happen.