Not a developer, but what do you mean in your second paragraph? Do you think people should take more time between jobs or spend part of their (generally two weeks) notice as vacation? Just wondering.
I've read about this a bit for mods on DSLRs for taking older Canon's and allowing them to record video. If the DSLR isn't designed for recording video the sensor isn't designed for continuous light exposure which will heat up an ruin the sensor. I don't know the differences but I'd imagine using one of the newer DSLRs that have video recording capability as a webcam would be fine.
I haven't followed html5 development too closely, but audio support in current browsers hasn't been uniform. I'm guessing the lack of one size fits all for audio in browsers is why.
In maths at my local community college the teacher made lesson plans for the 3 latest editions of the book, allowing students to be able follow along with whatever one they had/could afford.