Obviously, it was a slightly tongue in cheek comment..

However, I would point out that WebMynd IS doing personalised search (totally personalised, in fact). As you point out, updating search indices every time a user visits a page is difficult. The fact that Google have chosen not to tackle this challenge, and we have, is a symptom of their existing methods and stated goal of organising the world's information: not your's.

As for your last point, I actually agree with the OP and others that Google's soft touch on this matter was commendable; disabling the effect or blocking the extension outright would have been heavy handed and sent a pretty bad message.

I'm not entirely sure disabling the personalization effect would have been the wrong thing to do from a user experience point-of-view. Supposed I let a friend browse on my computer, do I really want my search results to be personalized with stuff that interests him/her? What about pages I mis-clicked on or pages that whose link was misleading?

I think that requiring a deliberate, conscious vote of confidence from the user for a web-page before actually letting it affect my personalized search results is a very good thing.

But from a public relations POV you're probably right, that was the best approach