Being that everyone on here has their own point of view of specialist being good or bad, I think it would be pretty much a waste of time talking about that issue because that is the past. We just have the future to look towards and that future is a semi/electronic marketplace similar to Nasdaq today. Future issues to address: 1. NY's Hybrid system- Failure/success/alternatives. 2. Nasdaq focusing- to ecn or not? What about those market makers? 3. Competitors- Regionals and new ECN's. 4. The new traders- Nasdaq traders trading NY stocks, program/algo traders, and rebate traders. 5. Tools needed for the new landscape for traders to succeed.