Had a very long talk with an old friend yesterday after swim practice. The condensed version goes like this:
Me (trying to make sense): What if? Perhaps? Maybe? I don’t know!
She: You have reasons to worry, most of which are not under your control. You must choose what you want to do anyway.
Me: I know and I already have. But I am tired and scared today.
She: That’s human.
Today I feel better. And we were not talking about work, anyway. Right now my world if full of warm and comforting things like a C# crib sheet and lots of XML character encodings. 
It may be impossible to design a program that can do the right thing to all data from all sources. However, most application process the same data from the same sources over and over again. With an understanding of the problem, a little custom configuration, and some testing after each new source is introduced, it should be possible to develop a solution to any real- world requirement.
I am about to find out if this is true…
Update: at least it wasn’t false. We found a working solution just before the weekend. I’m off to dinner now!