Whether you try to supply a comprehensive set of characters in one font file or many isn’t really the issue, though. You’ve still got to get all those glyphs fr

Whether you try to supply a comprehensive set of characters in one font file or many isn’t really the issue, though. You’ve still got to get all those glyphs from somewhere, however they are grouped. I’m just not sure I see a compelling argument that any new device entering the market must be able to render advanced mathematical notations, animals, and tarot cards. That’s a very high barrier to entry. In due course, if there are freely available, good quality fonts that do the job, then by all means include them, but we’re a long way from that situation today. Even the most comprehensive efforts, things like Unifont, don’t cover all of Unicode. Also, without wishing to belittle anyone’s efforts, some of these projects are working on bitmap fonts, and it’s increasingly a vector world. Perhaps they are still useful as a rendering of last resort, but I suspect anyone working on a new platform or device has more pressing concerns.