@Justin Tadlock and @Matt - I can see your point on the technical side of this argument ... but for me and my users, just having the ability to use a /?p=100 or a link with a base64 hash as the slug on another domain name doesn't quite cut it for several reasons. When people use twitter or facebook to build their brand many of them want their links to be short and to be able to completely control how they look (whether it's an internal and an external link).

My shorurl slugs are generated with a Base36 algorithm and can be 1-3 characters in length (which is more than enough space since these links are being created on domain names that don't have to support millions of users) so I at least filter out special characters in the generated slug (like ?,=, etc). Users aren't tied to a generated slug either, they can customize them any way they like.

As far as the stats go, you're right ... there are a myriad of different options available. The stats in pretty link aren't aiming to be anything like Google Analytics or WordPress.com stats, it focuses mainly on reporting simple, real-time clicks for urls that could be internal, outgoing, or completely off of the site (like a url posted to twitter) -- Pretty Link doesn't care, it will show click-thrus on any link. The Pro version adds the ability to track flows through specific sequences of links (like in an email campaign) to measure conversions and to easily setup split tests.

I agree that short links should probably disappear someday but I believe that there will always be a need to have complete control over how your links appear whether they are going to a page on your website or anywhere on the net.