I'd go farther and say that I specifically don't want the million Alexa skills out there. A system that let me write my own intents with access to the top-level

I'd go farther and say that I specifically don't want the million Alexa skills out there. A system that let me write my own intents with access to the top-level namespace would be ideal, but it would absolutely need to come with good hardware. That's where Alexa/Google have the upper hand currently, I think.