Joe, I think you are marginalizing what seems to be a very important event.  While the end result is roughly the same as other genetic engineering processes, the process used was not.  I think that many of the most important discoveries in science are not the actual discoveries themselves, but the processes that were used to make those discoveries.  Processes such as PCR, Sanger sequencing, blotting, NMR, etc., are the real scientific achievements.  Processes such as this open up a new way of thinking and potentially future great discoveries.  (Sorry for saying “processes” so much)

Despite Ventor’s hype, it was NOT a synthetic cell. The cell was entirely natural. What was “synthetic” was the DNA that was inserted into the nucleus to replace the natural DNA.

But even that was hardly remarkable. The DNA that was incorporated was an identical copy of the original DNA. Of course it worked - DNA is just a chemical - if you take out one copy of the chemical and replace it with an exact copy, it will work exactly the same. Geneticists have been synthesizing DNA for a long time, and inserting bits of it into cells - that is the primary procedure in all genetic engineering.

The only thing novel here is that the entire genome was synthesized instead of just parts.

So the cell was entirely natural, the composition of the DNA was exactly like the original, and the synthesis of DNA is nothing new. An enormous amount of over-hype by a scientist who is a businessman, and very well experienced in hyping things to a clueless media.