[methehack]

Any persistent storage will exhibit the cruft problem over time for any system of even limited complexity. You're describing people, not Smalltalk. And Smalltalk has had version control for more than a decade.

Smalltalk always felt like it was from the future to me. Its vision and respect for human thought and creativity is so grand it makes me blush. It represents a real belief in technology and what people might do with it. It's full of hope and humanity. It's basically the Shire of programming environments -- if the Shire were part of the Standford campus.

If you haven't checked Smalltalk out, you should free your mind and give it a shot.