The main use case for the distro itself being statically linked is being able to pin specific software at old versions. I wouldn't do this often, but it could b

The main use case for the distro itself being statically linked is being able to pin specific software at old versions. I wouldn't do this often, but it could be very helpful at times—sometimes even just temporarily for testing. But also, package managers in general make me kind of uncomfortable, because I feel like I never know the full state of my system. I've certainly run into library errors in the past with official packages (a long time ago), and while it's probably because I did something dumb, I also probably had a decent reason, and static linking would keep it all self-contained.