The fact that it forwards package registration to the underlying ghc-pkg system, has very poor/nearly nonexistent record keeping, and can't perform uninstall op

The fact that it forwards package registration to the underlying ghc-pkg system, has very poor/nearly nonexistent record keeping, and can't perform uninstall operations are kinda crucial. I've never heard of a packager manager that can't uninstall. If you present it as a package manager, even if it's a bad one, then you also telegraph a certain amount of implied functionality, and in turn the user has a certain level of confidence that the system is smart enough to do its best to prevent you from damaging your package ecosystem (not a guarantee, but at least an effort); cabal and by extension cabal-install doesn't provide this at all. It simply provides a way to install packages and makes a best effort at meeting the build goals required for individual commands to succeed in a vacuum. I hesitate to call that a package "manager". It's just a very mediocre package installer.