Proprietary OS is going to push the app store, by converse the free OS is still going to scale well because the skeleton crew of volunteers can still keep all the supported binary software up to date with security and modernization updates (not necessarily related to Haiku) for the masses who will not compile it for themselves.
You may have some insight that I do not regarding project leadership but I respectfully disagree that package management is not just "lost in the weeds." Haiku would not be advancing or at all survivable as a general-purpose OS without it.
HaikuPorts/HaikuDepot/pkgman is really slick.
Proprietary OS don't have that, which is why:
1) They can support stable binary-only commercial software, and
2) They do not need or benefit from Linux-style package management.
BeOS R5 had the stable APIs necessary to achieve a stable OS without Linux style package management. The shift away from that has also involved a shift away from the idea that the OS should ship ABI-stable libraries.
Linux-style package management isn't an appropriate tier-one feature for a modern stable desktop OS.
In fact, it should not -- if having a stable system on which binary software can be shipped is important, a built-in supported Linux-style dependency management system will undermine that goal entirely.
Instead of shipping BeOS R5 and no more, which was the project's goal since inception, they're bolting on Linuxisms like package management and in the process getting completely lost in the weeds.