So, you think you don't need curation but actually you do. There is some malware filtering that goes on, and some minimum (and I do mean minimum) quality control. There are content restrictions and such, that make the platform widely appealing. You might not want them, but the reason more and more and more apps are written for the platform is because of market power that comes from being content friendly. So the app you think doesn't need gatekeeping might not have ever even been written had it not been for this gatekeeping.

Kind of like saying, what has a cop ever done for me?

That said, yes, everything about it could be better. I very much detest app discovery in the app store, and it's almost as difficult via web or other means. At least in amazon you can filter out under 4-star products. And if you apply at least one category filter then you can also filter out marketplace sellers. The app store should have at a minimum some kind of stars filter.