I think we will find Thunderbolt is the copper variant and Light Peak is the optical variant. Having a first ever popular PCIe external connector is an achievement all by itself, but to integrate several protocols over a single line and connector is a thing. With a daisy-chain protocol akin to SCSI back in the day (1984!) where you could connect your HD, scanner, and other high I/O peripherals.
I have been chiming in about Macintosh's I/O crippling for years and hoping for some connector, any connector, that could surpass FW800 or PCIe over Expresscard/34.
I cannot use advanced search to find the string I/O in my posts because it contains the character /, but they are there from many moons ago.
I see OSX Lion is adding more Lisa-like features.
Rocketman