- The reason why the flash plugin hogs your cpu is because apple doesn't expose the proper hardware acceleration API: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/does_html5_really_beat_... Adobe would want to optimize the plugin but can't.
- Why is it Adobes fault when your laptop becomes noisy under cpu load? Maybe you just don't need that fat cpu if you never use more than 30% of it? I don't know, but when i buy a device that is too noisy i don't blame software that makes use of it. In Apples world, this is of course not true. It's Adobes fault that your laptop is noisy.
- Afaik, the solution for creating flash applications on the ipad would be very different from the plugin, as it would generate objective-c code that'd be compiled by the apple SDK
About sites dropping Flash:
I believe that the internet doesn't need apple to get rid of flash. The internet will eventually not use Flash for navigation or for Ads in the mid-term anyway. As soon as major browsers support everything that flash does. That's how the internet has been evolving for the last decades. First it used frames, then tables, then CSS. Why would flash hold its position if it's the inferior technology?
And another question:
If Apple thinks that flash on the web is evil: They could've said "ok, no flash plugin in the browser". But leave the rest intact. Let developers use whatever tools they want to build applications! Be it Flash, Air, Unigine and whatever programming language they want! It is, i repeat, not about what is the best experience for the user it is just about the money, no more, no less.
Also, when flash is that bad. Why is it still supported under Mac OS X? I mean.. you should just get rid of flash on your laptop too. No? Of course not, Flash doesn't expose a threat to Apple on the Macbook, you are already buying your software elsewhere.