Why is it a terrible solution? What jQuery API features (that might be developed in 2.x) are missing that you need? The current API fulfils the purpose of the jQuery Project; many of the recent API changes have been syntactic sugar changes and I imagine most future ones will be as well.
>Which are not Desktops, so I don't see your point
Oops... Well anyway, I know plenty of people who cannot get DSL or cable in their area and rely on spotty wireless connections
If you don't like conditionals, then don't use them. Stick with 1.9 or 1.8
Download and runtime are absolutely a problem on the desktop. There will always be a decent amount of people on unreliable connections and mobile devices with slow processors
How is this "dropping support" for old IE? They've said the 1.9 branch will still receive bug fixes for a while. I doubt they'll leave the 1.9 branch behind (in regards to new API features) until IE8 gets close to IE6's current market share.
Once mobile web browsers have access to most of the APIs that native apps have access to, and they have good offline functionality, developing a web app over a native app will be a no-brainer