> But then whatever app that runs as root that actually needs to update it is going to remount it rw, at which point the original problem stands.
There's a difference between a system which, at all times, is one mistyped command from being bricked, and a system which allows you to brick it if you're explicitly doing something dangerous in the first place.
> let's take all the stuff that users should be able to do and make it accessible by nonroot, and take all the stuff they shouldn't be able to do and put it in the realm of automation
While theoretically reasonable, this is also a huge project, and while this project is slowly implemented users are still vulnerable to this bug. Additionally, there's always going to be Linux users who find the idea abhorrent, and thus it remains a bug for those users. Choosing to have more control should not generally mean that you can brick your machine so easily as accidentally deleting a few files.
There's a difference between a system which, at all times, is one mistyped command from being bricked, and a system which allows you to brick it if you're explicitly doing something dangerous in the first place.
> let's take all the stuff that users should be able to do and make it accessible by nonroot, and take all the stuff they shouldn't be able to do and put it in the realm of automation
While theoretically reasonable, this is also a huge project, and while this project is slowly implemented users are still vulnerable to this bug. Additionally, there's always going to be Linux users who find the idea abhorrent, and thus it remains a bug for those users. Choosing to have more control should not generally mean that you can brick your machine so easily as accidentally deleting a few files.