I agree with your assessment, but disagree with your recommendation. I sincerely doubt ROS will be used in its current state for legitimate autonomy. It can seem half-assed because it is fastly changing.

I think your DDS comments apply nicely to OpenDDS, and I sincerely hope that the spotlight of ROS2.0 will improve OpenDDS significantly.

ROS is a good platform to study and learn. It is not something you'll find in a car in a garage. But it is worth it, because there are similar-enough platforms used for actual, real-world applications that would impress even the most curmudgeonly programmer. Such as ...

https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/tasks/showTask.cfm?FuseAct...