To an extent, this is already available -- for example in the Topaz Labs InFocus Photoshop plugin. There are some params to play with that make it easier to find the blur trajectory when the blur is motion-related (although if you leave it in "figure it out for yourself" mode, it gets it right often enough). InFocus (the current version) will only do linear trajectories, though -- it can't handle curves as well as this Photoshop sneak does.

The parameter preload isn't cheating -- if they're anything like the InFocus params, they're pretty obvious but somewhat tedious. They're things like telling it that you're trying to correct motion blur rather than focus blur, what level of artifacting you're willing to put up with (for forensics or text recovery, you can put up with a lot of noise in the uninteresting part of the picture), the desired hardness of recovered edges, that sort of thing. It would have just been a time-waster for the demo (and, like in the demo, InFocus allows you to save the params as a preset).

Yeah, I tried the Topaz InFocus plugin after it got a bit of buzz from the TWIP podcast. It wasn't quite as magical as the demo images on the site made it seem, and I ended up not buying it (Topaz's Denoise plugin, OTOH, is quite incredible).

I suspect people will have to manage their expectations with this Adobe plugin/feature as well.

I've gotten some rather amazing results with InFocus myself, but it does take a lot of tweaking of sliders and so on. It was mostly recovering irreplaceable stuff, otherwise it wouldn't have been worth the bother. (Taking better pictures is always the better option when you have it.) I do prefer the output of a mild application to unsharp masking for photos that aren't actually blurry, though. And, of course, running it after DeNoise just gets you your noise back, often sharper and more noticeable than before.

I sort of expect Adobe to do better -- they've got a lot more resources to work on the problem. Maybe I'll finally find a reason to upgrade from CS3.

Curious - how badly blurred were your images?

When I tried InFocus, I used them on some shots where I blew the focus at wider apertures (now that I'm using a camera with better high ISO performance, that kind of defocus is rarely an issue, because I have the luxury of stopping down), and I couldn't get adequate results and I wasn't willing to spend a lot of time tweaking sliders.

I am totally with you on the idea of taking better pictures though. The more you can reduce your effort in post with technique, the better. A lot of stuff is unfixable in post.

He used the same parameter profile each time.

No, he's loading a different parameter file each time.

I think there is. I much prefer cynicism to the blind adulation of "this tech is amazing and magical". Otherwise it's almost marketing spin.

I think both are extreme ends of a spectrum on which you should try to stay in the middle somewhere.