"To my mind, Cuil could've stayed afloat, but no one wanted it to. It was easier to sweep that giant pile of FUBAR under the rug, but, in retrospect, they would've still likely been a large company, albeit not Google size, but large nonetheless."
Care to elaborate why (you believe they'd become a large company)?
Ask.com and the fact that their epic fail probably gave them great SEO :).
In all honesty, I think that a 100M investment would've been enough of a runway to right the ship IF anyone could've stomached it after the horrific launch. Cuil could've pivot'ed their algorithm or their model and been a relatively large search engine (1% of the market is ~$1.5B).
Success, in all things, is relative. Cuil could've been the fifth biggest search engine on Earth and STILL have made a ton of money.
Care to elaborate why (you believe they'd become a large company)?