> I think the power of the 64 was its' limited BASIC

I am torn about this. Forcing people to use machine language for anything serious makes sense. The 10,000-strong C64 software library exists. Your point about the great screen editor is well taken.

On the other hand, what about all those who would have experimented on their own more if they could have done things with CBM BASIC 2.0 that Atari BASIC has out of the box? Applesoft BASIC has more graphics support than CBM BASIC, too, and there was never a problem with converting experimenters into "real" developers.