The problem is that the ONLY people playing in the DMR space are mega-geeks about it, who care about building a beautiful perfect system and not at all about it

The problem is that the ONLY people playing in the DMR space are mega-geeks about it, who care about building a beautiful perfect system and not at all about it's usability by actual people, nor about if it's good for ham radio or not. DMR is essentially a commercial radio network, being run on amateur radio frequencies. This type of radio network is not designed to be understood by the user, it is designed so that the user can be handed a radio with a channel-select dial on the top and told "go to channel 3", and never think about how the radio works other than press-PTT-before-you-start-speaking. Because so very little of it is actually user-controllable, many HAMs would just as soon never touch it. There's very little "amateur" in it at all, except for amateur network admins who think it's fun to have some gear on the top of a mountain. In case you haven't deduced it yet, in my personal opinion: DMR is a blight on HAM radio. If you want a motorola trunked radio network, buy a motorola trunked radio network.