I think part of the problem is that there's so many "Does x not solve this problem?" solutions now all with their own unique downsides and upsides, it reminds me of that one xkcd[0].
I spent time in MIPI PHY and I am very familiar with this issue. appimage isn't the same kind of solution though because there were zero competing solutions. There were no universal linux binaries. Having one is a much better situation.