* A Flash app is trying to be an app so sometimes persistent URLs are useless. That said there are time you want one and Flash can do that, it's up to the programmer, don't blame the technology, the feature is there.
* Flash the format is an open standard, In June 2009, Adobe launched the Open Screen Project, which made the SWF specification available without restrictions. What is closed is their player. That said they have released open source actionscript libraries.
* As for emphasizing visuals, that is due to the designer driving the project. Flash and Flex offer a rich programming environment so it's really up to each project to choose what they want.
* Yes there are sucky flash apps, but there are also sucky webpages. There is sucky everything. There are also good flash apps and good websites.
People who say that Flash is accessible aren't visually impaired. I am. I have not once seen a Flash application that works well enough to be useful in any screenreader I've used. I have been following Adobe's accessibility efforts for years.
HTML5 + JS + ARIA works better now than Flash ever has.
It's fine to make Flash games that don't work with screenreaders. But not websites.
And it's not fine to claim that something is accessible just because the vendor says it is.
* Adobe have a whole section on how to make your application accessible http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/
* Flash the format is an open standard, In June 2009, Adobe launched the Open Screen Project, which made the SWF specification available without restrictions. What is closed is their player. That said they have released open source actionscript libraries.
* As for emphasizing visuals, that is due to the designer driving the project. Flash and Flex offer a rich programming environment so it's really up to each project to choose what they want.
* Yes there are sucky flash apps, but there are also sucky webpages. There is sucky everything. There are also good flash apps and good websites.