I'll admit to having some doubts myself, but I think the recent corporate efforts are definitely encouraging. Odelay, which deadlines are you referring to? I know that Gho and Bazan were predicting some impressive advances, but my impression of them is that they were fairly small time.
I think a major difference between four years ago and today is coverage. K e n Washenik's given interviews to practically every hair site out there, and he appeared in a Wired article on HM in 2004. Bosley and Intercytex have been announcing that they're working on HM for a good while now, and they know how many unhappy people out there are counting on this. I would assume that these companies choose the deadlines they announce very carefully, because they know that every setback is going to raise doubts on whether they can actually pull this off. Doubt translates to bad press and decreased funding, so they've got a lot on the line.
I've said before that even if this does come out in four years, I'll probably wait a little. But I believe that HM is definitely coming, within a decade at the latest. There's too much money to be made here for companies not to pursue this technology.
