I've been imagining for some time an ideal system with just two languages: one compiled low-level one, one interpreted high-level one -- and absolutely zero runtime configuration beyond that. Anytime you want to change how a program behaves you would have to edit its sources. A whole system with the dwm[1] aesthetic, basically. Always keep sources close to programs, allow the entire system to recompile with a single command. Encourage people to micromanage precisely which image formats they want to turn on. The only thing that is interpreted at runtime is code in the high level language.
[1] "dwm is customized through editing its source code.." http://dwm.suckless.org