I find the package manager actually great. Quicklisp works with monthly "distributions" that are tested to load together, rather than libs that must be strictly pinned and updated separately like everywhere else. I can understand the ecosystem problem, but it might be way better than one thinks: https://github.com/CodyReichert/awesome-cl

Also, Quicklisp can be completed with http://ultralisp.org/, a distribution that builds every 5 minutes and to which it is trivial to add a library. There's also Qlot for local dependencies, and more.