Malorn,
I've always been impressed with the quality of your posts, and I expressed my sentiment in the past.
I'm glad to hear you're joining the PS2 team! I used to be buddies with TSR-JoelS in PS1 and so I got to hear a lot about the work environment over there, and it sounded like fun. I've also had the privilege of meeting T-Ray and some other PS1 devs and they are definitely a talented bunch. I, along with the rest of the community, know that you will be a valuable addition to the team, and that's without any detailed knowledge of your software engineering skills.
My congratulations on this opportunity! I'm lucky in that my career is also my hobby, so I can understand how exciting this must be for you. In fact, if SOE is in need of an enterprise WAN data tech, you know who to call.