Pocket already does about 85% of what I want (5% missing features I do want, and the other 10% being removing features I don't want, like the Sponsored content showing up in my feed), so I'm mostly happy with it.

But as long as we're talking pie-in-the-sky:

- Grabs only content, none of the crap

- Should be able to grab images that are core content to the article

- Completely FLOSS, with option for self-hosting. Member pricing would basically pay for cloud hosting and support.

- Robust platform support. Win/Mac/Linux/iOS/Android support or support for major browser extensions. Client support for popular e-readers also a huge plus--Pocket integration was a major influence on my getting a Kobo instead of a Kindle

- Bi-directional article management within the client. I should be able to Archive/Favorite/Delete an article within the RIL client and have those changes pushed back to the server.

- An option to read aloud an article using the OS's native Text-to-Speech engine so that it does not require a wifi connection (again, existing quibble with Pocket)

- Privacy-focused. Don't share my lists with marketers, don't put "popular" content into my feed if I didn't ask for it. I don't care what other people are reading, much as I don't care what other people choose to Bookmark. My Reading List is for me and me alone.

- Ability to crawl older, multi-page articles and consolidate into a single view.

- Ability to cache the article itself so that it would still be readable if the content at the URL itself vanishes between the time I add it to RIL and the time I actually get around to reading it.

EDIT: RSS support would be cool, too.