I think you're mistaking multipool for middlecoin. The latter is what you described. Multipool gives you the coins directly and shows tons of data of your/the pool's mining status.
It has by no means "displaced" its proprietary equivalent, but Inkscape is one of the most user-friendly open source apps I've ever used. I find it far more intuitive than Illustrator. An incredible amount of power and complexity is presented in a way that makes it quite intuitive and a joy to use. It's also easily extensible if you're a programmer.