Hey G.M.,
Well, one thing is I think you've picked an awful tough crowd here. A gang of unrepentant formalists are unlikely to give l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e its due.
Back in undergrad, I had the pleasure of working closely with Michael Joyce, who is generally considered one of the "fathers" of hypertext fiction (and a wonderful man, to boot), so I got a firsthand account, and some experience, with how much resistance work like what you're discussing can get.
But I think the real problem here is that examples you've chosen are so facile that they really don't do justice to the distinction you've made. "B" and "r-p-o-p-etc." are crappy. Why not John Hollander's "Swan and Shadow" if you really want to go in that direction? (Though I think "concrete poetry" already does a pretty good job of describing those poems).
Again, in my undergrad days I messed around with making hypertext poetry and a variety of other out-there ideas. I think some of my results were pretty positive -- startling, and perhaps even good. I'd love to show them to you, only they were made in programs that are no longer used in an operating system that's obsolete...which is undoubtedly the biggest issue. Until it's not prohibitively expensive and obnoxious to make and distribute these things, they're never going to have the chance of really becoming an "art." Ditto video games, which should have started getting interesting a long time ago, only nobody with the artistic chops to really do something creative has the skills necessary to make the actual video game.
It'll happen though.
Regards,
-Dan
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