Thanks for mentioning SmartOS (I was about to mention it myself). There is also LX-Branded zones which actually allow you to run Docker images in zones (ref: smart data center).

I don't agree with your gripes about Docker though, it does actually solve problems and allows developers to define what the requirements are for their software to run (it also makes build systems much less horrible). More importantly, all software is "random files copied from the developers laptop", so I don't see why that's a negative.