Whoever thinks they can create something that has "government approved quality" in 48 hours is crazy. We are not crazy.
As stated before, we wanted to use the data that is already there and make it available in a userfriendly way, something the current geocoders for OSM don't really do.
When you talk about the claim I make, that I wish OSM is going to be the first goto place when people want to search something on a map is still valid. It's my wish, not a general statement I'm making. And hey, it worked with Wikipedia. For many people it's the first place they go to when they are looking for information, so I think this can also work for OSM
I do admire your effort in making OSS and data more usable to the end user. I'm probably biased since I have some experience in this field, but OSM isn't usually an option I would select for personal projects or casual lookups.
Where I found my "love" for OSM was when I bought a Garmin GPS and I used the OSM bike maps. Here in Germany they are very detailed and I have made 500km or so bike tours only relying on OSM maps. Whereas Google still doesn't have that many information about bike tracks.
When I need to look up stuff I usually go to Google Maps, too, but that's only because the OSM solutions out there frustrate me with irrelevant results and I have to scroll through endless amounts of data to get to the information I'm looking for. :)
As stated before, we wanted to use the data that is already there and make it available in a userfriendly way, something the current geocoders for OSM don't really do.
When you talk about the claim I make, that I wish OSM is going to be the first goto place when people want to search something on a map is still valid. It's my wish, not a general statement I'm making. And hey, it worked with Wikipedia. For many people it's the first place they go to when they are looking for information, so I think this can also work for OSM