[mekishizufu]

> Contrast that, say, with npm -g. Most npm -g installs will fail without su, unless you are willing to spend a half hour reconfiguring where dependencies install--pretty fucked in my opinion, as you could potentially install something really nasty.

It's actually not that bad. You can tell npm where to install "global" packages in the .npmrc file:

  prefix = /home/foouser/npmlocal

and then just add the bin sub-directory into your $PATH.

> Now, many package managers like apt-get use curated databases for their packages. But in my view, this just is not enough. Homebrew's respect of the user's system is just superior.

Agreed. This matters even more as a lot of packages are available only through PPAs.