I think I can show some my opinions, which have
concern with your comments as follows:

1. java  apps are slow  in the desktop

---> Yes, I totally agree with this comment.

2. Java apps  use a non-standard GUI in Windows

---> Yes but not important because GUI in Java is
also beautyful when you integrate with LookAndFeel
technology.

3. Java apps are not compiled  to static  code, so they
> are slower than C/C++ or at least not faster  than
> VB.

---> Yes, I totally agree with this comment.

- Java is only good  for the server  side or the
> Enterprise side  of Computing

---> No, I don't think so, because java is slower
than C/C++ and so Java is really good with products
that need independent platform.

Conclusion:
In my opinion, when we build products expecially
server side, we should build its core with C/C++
language, only use Java language when we need to build
independent platform or Web application in client side
and we will use JNI so that they can connect to our
Core that was written by C++. I think that every
product will has high performance (calculate by
milisecond) and independent platform feature.