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Not only that, but you would probably never run into a senario where you can't find a package for a particular distro. Also, this might persuade some commercial vendors to port their apps to Linux if they could package their app up only once and have it work for all distros.

I think a standard way of source code being written is a better idea. Have all source code reference, for example, SYSCONFDIR instead of /etc. Have all source code use gnu autotools, with a set of standard naming conventions for options. That way packaging would be trivial, and those wanting a lightweight package manager could use one that didn't use all of the standards, and kept things simple, another user could use a package manager with all the nifty features.

I won't deny that package management is a shortcoming in Linux for newcomers. I'll attest that once you learn Linux, it's not a problem, but I think our debate is implicitly dealing with new users, so I won't really back that up.

Alright, then ... came someone list for me these 'wonder distros' where you can get the latest version of anything you want in 2-3 days?

I use Crux, and most of the software gets updated really quickly, except for major updates. Then again, I manually update a lot of stuff myself

I think that the trend in Linux shows a gradual progression to more standardization, more simplicity, and more ease of use.

I think a mistake often made in the Windows camp is assuming that ease of use for newcomers means a tradeoff of ease of use for the experts. In reality, the most elegant solutions make life easy on both.