But Google - I don’t want my search engine to do a slide show! I want it to help me find good comparisons between, say, a Novation xioSynth and X-Station 25: without going through results for a hundred different stores who list the same exact damn product specs.

Remember that search engine of yours? How about spending some time making that more useful and usable again? YAHOO once had an experimental feature where you could move a slider between “Research” and “Purchase” (or something like that), and the results list would start to filter out stores (research side) or filter out snide reviews (purchase side). There are times when I’m looking to research and compare products, and times when I’m looking to buy the best result. But I hate how much bullshit I have to wade through when researching.