Sure, the ideal is to think about how “information” and “knowledge” can be captured in some electronic format, but there will always be information that is readily available to us, just not electronically. Let’s not overlook this rich resource-type.

Very true. After all whatever we come up with for the digital world is only part of a larger context: the real world.

IMHO, an approch without more flexible data models than “url-ing”, “tagging” and “labeling” will certainly be an obstacle to creating the quasi-organic information ecosystem needed to integrate the digital part withing the greater whole.