Huygens was basically a modern equivalent of a Soviet Venus probe. What it did was land on a hard surface, take some poor quality pictures, and perhaps take a few atmospheric readings. Basically this story shows it was utterly redundant, and more to the point it really was a publicity stunt for the European Space Agency. What we saw with Huygens was the modern equivalent of the Soviet Venera program. Which itself was very weak on science.
You might gather I dislike the piggy backing that has been going on with space probes lately. They have become more of a me too phenomena than an agency actually trying to push the boundaries of science or engineering. The only agency really pushing the limits is NASA. Which is a real shame anyone fascinated in planetary science would love to see something along the lines of the rover program out of the other space agencies. However that is never going to happen if they keep just buying space on American probes.
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