Digital Skeuomorphs: From an analog past to a digital future

I had never heard of the word "skeuomorphs" until about a few weeks ago when the latest issue of Wired magazine appeared at my doorstep. In it was a one page article by Clive Thompson titled "Analog Designs in the Digital age". As a big fan of design, I dived right in. It talked about how the analog design has been almost literally translated into a digital version and the concept behind it being skeuomorphs. I was intrigued. By the end of the article, I was looking at my Android smartphone, my Macbook Pro, my Windows 7 PC and my wife's iPhone 4S. I was hunting for what the author talks of - digital derivatives of an analog original. To me, it was as if a whole visual dimension had opened up. Since I read the article, I have been looking at all things old, digital, and usual, with a different perspective.The author makes a good case for why skeuomorphs are cramping new design sensibilities. A quote from literary critic N.Katherine Hayles referenced in the same article aptly summarizes the digital artists predisposition to the throwback style - "They are threshold devices, smoothing the transition between one conceptual constellation and another.". There are digital skeuomorphs all around us. Gmail's envelope, Apple's email folders resembling a filing cabinet, Google Docs usage of a sheet of paper, and so on. On one hand these artifacts do help us immediately connect with its real world counterpart and take to it quickly. On the other hand, when you think about it, they continue to propagate rigid associations to what could soon be antiquated. Evidently, Apple and Google love these references. Maybe their success is telling us that we like this analog association to our digital present. There are proponents for both approaches. Here is an article from Boing Boing which makes a case for why skeuomorphs are good for us. Here is a case for making a clean break.Do we as adopters of new technology, require this transitional handholding?. Or do we want a clean break, one bereft of ties to the analog past of our digital future?. Personally, I would like to see new things. Unique approaches to conveying a message without resorting to known references. A challenge to the designer if you want to look at it that way. But for now, I am happy spotting skeuomorphs every where. It cant be stopped now.It is all around us.