If I think about it: most of my career has consisted of re-creating something that already exists. And the one constant is that there is never any lack of peop

If I think about it: most of my career has consisted of re-creating something that already exists. And the one constant is that there is never any lack of people who line up to tell me what a bad idea this is. They aren't always wrong. But they also are not always right. And when they aren't right interesting things tend to happen that sometimes involve important changes. Linux itself was a "misguided" project as Minix already existed for the low end and lots of UNIXen existed for the higher end. The exact same sentiments, plus a lot less charitable ones, were put forward back then. And I remember people thinking me silly for working for a web search company in the late 90s "because Altavista already exists". Rewrites are perhaps a misguided idea for people who are highly entrenched in a "worker" mentality. But there are other modes of thinking and working. There exist people with what one could call a "creator" mentality. But I would distill one point from your post that I think is important: the goal of re-creating Linux may not be the correct goal. But I think staying close to Linux has merit. Usability over fashion has proven to be a deciding factor for success as far as design goes. The rest is down to leadership and organizational skill.