Seems to me that this isn't a fundamental mistake but a featureset they could still add now. Not that it's on the table at Twitter HQ, but I believe that the window of opportunity to give Twitter the ability to read and provide microformats is still here. Existing clients would get the same tweets, but could be easily extended to link to the web to get the "attached" data.
Your idea makes me swoon, but I think it'll never happen because that isn't the vision Twitter has, not because it's too late.
"Your idea makes me swoon, but I think it'll never happen because that isn't the vision Twitter has, not because it's too late."
That, and also the fact that by now the ship has gotten big enough that turning it around would be virtually impossible. It's not just an issue of breaking third party clients, but also getting buy-in from the company and investors, completely redesigning the UI, etc.
Basically, consider this a free billion-dollar idea for anyone who wants it.
Your idea makes me swoon, but I think it'll never happen because that isn't the vision Twitter has, not because it's too late.