I feel that Vermeer and Tim are pretty much the same, although after watching that film Tim seems more romantic and poetic about picture making than Vermeer would have been given the time he was living in...
I agree with you that this is a good approach for learning the genre of drawing you are describing, but the art of drawing in general has just about as much to do with representing 3D forms on 2D planes as the art of programming does. It's a niche, especially these days.
I hope so too. Yes there wouldn't be web browsers in the sense that you are writing. I like how a 'browseros' could basically treat software itself as a plug-in where it relegates itself to being an IO device for software. Seems very simple and modular.