Sounds like you have part of the equation, but I was looking for an explanation as to why the bridge is necessary. Or maybe why PATA uses so many more pins that SATA. Or any real Solid Info. If you got it, let it out. If not, put a sock in it.
As drive transfer data faster, the new interface was necessary to keep data from being corrupted. See, when 2 or more wire are close together, as you can see on IDE flat ribbon, having one working at high frequency would affect the other near. This is why, with ATA100 and 133, you need 80 wires ribbon, even if there is 40 pins on the connector.
The extra wire simply act as a shield between wire to prevent crosstalking. Serial interface corrected this problem, as serial need less wire for transfer and signaling.
First SATA HDD were normal PATA HDD with serial interface. It can be guessed that first SATA with molex power was like a mix of both interface.
Now, newer SATA HDD got SATA interface as well as SATA power connector. This is called evolution and technology follow up.
With motherboard and chipset coming more and more with SATA interface, then you're going to see more and more controller supporting this interface. You may not know, but the Promise 376 controller, that equippep some motherboard some time ago was there to bring SATA support as well as PATA to motherboard in need of connector option. But ince SATA has pretty much replaced PATA, then no one still bother to support the outdated PATA interface. Unless you already have the HDD, it is guessed that if you're going to get a new one, it will be SATA. Optical devices is mainly the only use for PATA in new system.
So, when manufacturer started to get away from PATA, with SATA being still new to the market, PSU were not quite ready with SATA power connector, so molex from the old interface was still used. Just like chipset were not ready, so third party controller were use to bring SATA interface support.
Now, chipset has native SATA support, as well asPSU, and more manufacturer are starting to limit HDD model in PATA, concentrating the better and newer feature to their SATA line.
Just like AGP superset PCI, And PCI-e supersetting AGP, it is something that is not avoidable. old stuff are put to the side while new one are getting there..
First Raptor were SCSI drive, with a patched IDE interface to SATA to make it available. They did it for server market, not really for enthusiast.. Newer Raptor have more mature interface, but not quite up to date to SATAII standard.
but SATAII standard don't really bring performance advantage, but mainly features.
But there is one thing that you should not forget
SATA is an interface that replace the old PATA interface between an IDE controller and an IDE drive. It is no more than a wire. But this wire allow for more speed and feature than the old wire.
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