Lassos wrote:The pace of progress is impressive, probably only matched by Rybka 1 -> Rybka 3 progress
I'd say that Rybka progress was quite different. Take a look at these snapshots from the CCRL 40/40, back in the day:
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1	Rybka 1.2 64-bit	2996	+23	−22	75.6%	−181.9	32.7%	739
 	Rybka 1.1 64-bit	2988	+24	−24	77.5%	−193.7	31.8%	663
 	Rybka 1.1 32-bit	2969	+25	−24	71.7%	−150.5	34.5%	577
 	Rybka 1.2 32-bit	2964	+33	−32	69.1%	−133.9	33.3%	330
 	Rybka 1.0 64-bit	2918	+22	−21	68.9%	−127.0	35.8%	745
 	Rybka 1.0 32-bit	2884	+19	−19	63.9%	− 93.4	38.0%	919
2	Shredder 10	     2878	+27	−26	61.6%	− 79.7	34.1%	469
3	Hiarcs X50 32-bit  2858	+29	−29	49.9%	  +2.2	41.1%	355
4	Fritz 9	         2849	+16	−16	55.5%	− 38.1	35.2%	1293
5	Fruit 2.2-2.2.1	 2843	+15	−15	55.4%	− 35.8	39.8%	1418
 	Toga II 1.1a	    2829	+18	−18	55.6%	− 36.2	37.4%	968
As soon as Rybka 1 was properly tuned (version 1.1), no one came between a hundred ELO points. Then we had some "slow" year, to bring SMP around and finally, another revolution with Rybka 3:
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1	Rybka 3 64-bit 4CPU	     3229	+24	−24	79.2%	−209.2	33.9%	684
 	Rybka 2.3.2a 64-bit 4CPU	3128	+15	−15	70.1%	−133.7	41.4%	1552
 	Rybka 2.2 64-bit 4CPU	   3111	+30	−29	73.3%	−157.6	38.6%	404
 	Rybka 2.1 64-bit 4CPU	   3082	+39	−37	72.9%	−161.5	36.5%	249
2	Naum 3.1 64-bit 4CPU	    3077	+20	−20	61.1%	− 71.9	43.7%	819
3	Zappa Mexico II 64b 4CPU	3074	+18	−18	61.4%	− 73.5	46.4%	947
What we have nowadays, is cumulative evolution. And that allowed SF to share 1st, somewhere along the road, first with Houdini 4, then with Komodo 8+ and currently, with the two of them. Nothing resembling the kind of dominance, Rybka showed.