Regarding your #1 element: When I was coding w/ .Net PDC (e.g. pre- 1st beta) I would use the java reference docs to get some idea as to what to do because MS didn't have any real documentation for .Net at that time.
Regarding your #2 element: A perfect example of this is their attempt to take Adobe on with Silverlight (e.g. vs Flash), and also with XPS (e.g. vs PDF/Acrobat).
I'd be curious as to what you (or anyone else) see WPF as copying from as an example for that does not readily come to mind.
2. I like how even the name Silverlight pretty much tells you it's their Flash knock-off: silver + light = bright light or lightning = flash. It's like they're thumbing their nose and saying "neener-neener!" to Adobe.
Quick Wikipedia read on WPF made me think of similarities to Flash and Apple stacks. But there can be non-malevolent explanations for this, and I don't know a lot about WPF (since I now try to keep my brain non-Microsoft, for efficiency's sake), so take with grain of salt.
Regarding your #2 element: A perfect example of this is their attempt to take Adobe on with Silverlight (e.g. vs Flash), and also with XPS (e.g. vs PDF/Acrobat).
I'd be curious as to what you (or anyone else) see WPF as copying from as an example for that does not readily come to mind.