This paper offers a high-level retrospective overview of the GOPI middleware platform which is the outcome of a three-year project aimed at the development of generic, configurable and extensible middleware. GOPI has a clearly defined modular structure, is widely extensible with plug-ins at all levels of the architecture, and natively supports stream interactions as well as standard operation invocation. It offers a generic framework for quality of service (QoS) specification and management, and supports a high-level, multimedia-oriented programming environment that is backwardly compatible with the OMG's CORBA. At its lower levels it supports QoS-driven resource management and features an optimised HOP stack. Despite its enhanced functionality, GOPI's HOP performance equals or exceeds that of state-of-the-art CORBA platforms.