Thoughtful comment, thanks. I'm an Arch user as well and agree broadly with its approach to a desktop operating system. (I.e. stick as closely to upstream as possible.)

That said, I disagree that this means maintainers are unnecessary middlemen, even though their role on a distribution like Debian is obviously more prominent. The essay I linked to in my top level comment is actually by an Arch maintainer, explaining why they still see maintainers as playing an important role. http://kmkeen.com/maintainers-matter/