thoughts at one am while procrastinating term papers

... why is this generated postscript such crap?

... why does every postscript-generating utility on the planet generate crap?
... why is it that i can write a 40-line shell script that produces an eps file ONE TENTH THE SIZE of what everything else i try produces? (except convert. but what convert produced, dvips mangled.)

... why is there is no standalone utility for encoding data in the forms that postscript's "filters" like, thus forcing me to embed a glob of nasty postscript in the aforementioned shell script?
... why doesn't gs allow for an easier way of embedding globs of postscript in shell scripts?

... am I the only person in the entire world who cares about these things?

software hate / dear lazyweb,

Anyone who can (a) comprehend what the following bit of mild gobbledygook does, and (b) tell me why my first attempt that used \@ifnextchar instead of \futurelet did not work, will win a fabulous no-prize.

\usepackage{varioref}
\makeatletter
\def\appos#1{\leavevmode\unskip, #1\commaunlesspunct}
\def\commaunlesspunct{\futurelet\@let@token\@commaunlesspunct}
\def\@commaunlesspunct
       {\ifx\@let@token\@sptoken,\else
        \ifx\@let@token\@xobeysp,\else
        \ifx\@let@token\space,\fi\fi\fi}
\makeatother
\renewcommand\reftextafter{\appos{on the next page}}
% ... similar redefinitions for the other reftext macros ...

[EDIT 20 minutes later: This version doesn't work either. AAARGH HELP.]