It's just the lean methodology applied to studying. But the point is interesting, because while learning you do get a lot of informations that you have to assess in order to focus on the essential.
Sure Path's design is great, but as you say it focuses on classic facebook users. It is designed to interact with friends and family, which is what people use fb for.
So maybe the best exit for Path is to get bought by facebook.
China will clearly become a hot place for web development and IT support. But it must be said that web usages, concepts and-on a broader view- culture are quite different in China. Every occidental company has broken its back trying to breach into the chinese market.
Local players and copycats still rule China, like Weibo against twitter.
You nailed it. Did they change the constrained iOS UI for the better? Yes. Do they want to see their menu pop up in every new app? Maybe no.
But they clearly resolved an issue that many people have had for long. And we are thankful to them for that matter.
I will sure look upon this code to see if I can get some inspiration.
Remember, some painter said: "Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal"