- Yes. I think big players in Linux should start supporting core functionalities in GNOME and KDE, and make it polished for laptops and desktops and that would be very cool. For a long time, KDE had a problem of having too many things under its umbrella. Now, with separation of Plasma Desktop and Applications, focusing on Plasma Desktop and KDE PIM should be a good step.

- Kind of ties to the old point: KDE on Wayland does this extremely well.

- You're back to 20 years because problems are exactly from 20 years ago. Vendors refusing to support linux with d rivers.

- Audio filtering? Interesting. I know people who use Pipewire + Jack quite reasonably. But may be you have usecase I am now aware of? Would be happy to hear some.

It would help if Gnome wasn't so hostile towards proper cross-DE interop. A famous quote by a Gnome dev goes, "I guess you have to decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu app, or an Xfce app unfortunately"

They seem to genuinely believe that their way is the right way and everyone else is "holding it wrong" so there's no need for things that would make cross-DE apps easier (or even possible).