Your Idea of the Future is Bleak, Mr. Hitchings.

No offense, Mr. Hitchings, but I sincerely hope you're wrong. Here.

Or should I say No offense Mr Hitching's but I sincerely hope your wrong no well you asked for it

You say that, "The apostrophe is mainly a device for the eye, not the ear," but do you fail to realize that occasionally people read aloud? Or that it is, yes, possible to infer the writer's intention - but takes so much extra time for the brain to process? It is downright faster and more easily comprehensible to read something when it has been properly punctuated. And it thus makes me sad to read (or in my mind, hear) you write (say), "I am confident that [apostrophes] will either disappear or be reduced to little baubles of orthographic bling." No, Mr. Hitchings, I do not accept that (nor did your article and statements therein make me excited to read your forthcoming book, either).

If "you're" becomes "youre," why bother having the two different homonyms in the first place? "Your" and "you're" will quickly lead to the destruction of "their," "they're" and "there." And so on and so forth. And really: I'd rather not call people places (similar to why I'd rather not call chairmen inanimate objects). People are people, and things are things. Let's call them like they really are.

And while I'm at it...