While important, I think those have to be considered peripheral areas in a Linux distribution. What's not peripheral is the code, and users, by definition, can't contribute there.
It was innovative because it took usability seriously, because it wasn't satisfied with sub-par font rendering, and because it paid a bit of attention to themeing. But, it ran Gnome 2. That was a smart choice, but it wasn't terribly innovative.... tinkering then was what made the OS innovative...
If you want an organization that commits to releases on a fixed schedule, that commits to a certain level of support for customers who pay for that support, that commits to certain professional standards, then that organization needs to be able to replenish the resources it uses to meet those commitments. In this world, those kind of resources are bought and sold for cash.
All-volunteer distributions, like Debian, cannot make a commitment to release on a fixed schedule, and perhaps none of the other commitments.
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