I agree with your assessment. It's bizarre software engineering. I'm assuming they think they're "trailblazing" the way forward where applications begin to meld with browsers. But even my Firefox browser still has the File/Edit/View menu bar. (I noticed the disappearance of the menu bar from IE years ago but since I avoid it like the plague, it hadn't bothered me as much.)

I've been pricing Office 2003 on eBay and find it's absurdly cheap. Cheap enough I worry about ending up with pirated software. *sigh*