I can’t really imagine what compels those voices—if some group wants to make a distro, the should go for it. Worst case it will just fail.

And let's also imagine what compels people to recommend enthusiasts onto paths where they will be more successful.

Maintaining distros that are not some kind of overlay that can track the underlying base automatically is just asking for more maintenance than people will want to do while also Balkanizing options for users because while overlays can be composed, distro hopping very much does not compose.