[ncol]

In my opinion most of the distributions are starting from the wrong end. They start with kernel, add package management, decide which services to run, which toolkit to use and then make some utility applications. Sometimes over a few different distributions. This mean not only that it is hard to convince people why they should change things, but that when you made the improvements you want you end up stalling since you haven't actually tackled the things that are lacking.

What you should do is the opposite. They should start with the toolkit, the network infrastructure, the management utilities or something else that would be the use-case. Once you have e.g. a solid toolkit that is attractive to developers and people start making good applications the rest is a matter of time. There is of course a reason why people don't do this, which is because it is hard. But hard is good, it is complexity that will kill you.

This is of course essentially why Android and Chrome OS is successful in their own right.