At the API and system service levels the reason for all that goofy cruft is that businesses still use it, a lot, and are willing to pay fairly big bucks if and

At the API and system service levels the reason for all that goofy cruft is that businesses still use it, a lot, and are willing to pay fairly big bucks if and only if they get to keep it. Adding Linux features is just more cruft added to the kludge. Sells more units, particularly in Azure, not particularly part of some sort of strategic direction then, say, the Distributed Transaction Coordinator. The UI and OS-level shovelware stuff on the other hand is a nightmare that might kill the not-quite-golden-anymore goose.