there was a thread this year (I forgot about what) where datadrake talked at length about why that pm was chosen, and why it was preferable to the other popular ones (pac, calmares, etc) including shortcomings and adaptability in the solus big picture. Ikey may have shown up in dd's history of this, as I recall. Your (George ) question has been addressed thoroughly, recently, but I wouldn't know where to start looking as far as search terms.
