Why wasn't JOGL created simply by stripping Java3D of its
scenegraph functionality.

Or, to rephrase my question, wouldn't Java3D have already a
JOGL like subset providing direct binding to OGL, and wouldn't
it have been lot simpler to use that subset's architecture
to create JOGL ? Java3D, after all, has been very robust
- arguably slower to some, but definitely robust.


Would the JOGL team provide the overall design rationale
behind JOGL at some point in time for the benefit of people like me, assuming such a design paper doesn't already is available
somewhere ?

Java3D's native interface is also a significantly higher level of abstraction then JOGL.  Remember J3D today runs onto of OLG *or* D3D.

However one certainly COULD do a version of J3D that lived cleanly ontop of JOGL if all one wanted it to do was to support platform-independant OGL.