Wasn't the whole idea supposed to be about "the tool for the job"?

It's about 7:20 in the AM here, so bare with me.

To answer the direct question asked by the original poster:
1. The "you can't make money by kernel level programming" or, even worse, "you can't make money by open-source programming" ideas
2. The lack of patience new developers have to search for something inside code not google
3. The fact that most new developers do not understand the idea of hacking because they are developers, not hackers
4. Lack of documentation and other excuses listed above in other replies 5. The fact that the code base is already stable enough in most circumstances and does not require modification in order for something to be programmed on top of it

POV: One can create userland code to maximize the efforts of the kernel and one can tune the userland available options in the kernel. I, for one, don't try to mess around with something that works. And another thing. When you try to understand how to kill a userland daemon (ie PulseAudio) and fail miserably only to find that most people will tell you that in Ubuntu it is better, for your purposes, to remove it completely, you start to get a sense that you're using Windows. Ubuntu and friends make the user lazy. I'm not trying to start a flame war (does it even exist anymore?) but, with the introduction of HAL and PulseAudio and the other crap that you need to print the tree to in order for you to find out how your OS works, everything has, more or less, gone sideways.

I would refuse to buy products that use patented stuff if I were you. Then all of your furniture would be made out of wood by gypsies on the side of the road, right?

Sharing your perspective on the matter I would add "I'm not in favor of the government being able to turn off a net connection because that means that sooner or later somebody else will also be able to do it"

Yeah, and it has nothing to do with the B-3 bomber (watch the movie Wag the dog).

Just be sure to tell us (if you still can) about the time - in the future - when you're no able to access the Internet because the president is trying to catch the midnight hacker.

Let's get one thing straight. If you, or anybody else, think that the only thing the president of the US has on his mind is for you not to get hacked, you need to have your head examined. That's why homeland security, NSA and all the other spooks are there. To watch over you and be sure that only they can control you.

Well, isn't this just like saying "If you use a screwdriver made by Bosch then they should have control/ownership over everything you create with that tool"?
More to the point, the Internet is a date communication layer, everything else I leave to science.

The concept seems sound and trades are not uncommon in the cracker world but this is not the problem. - "How do you know that your system is secure?" - "Aaaa, I have an antivirus and broadband router that is handling my Internet connection. That should keep me safe" - "Ok. And why are there all those ports opened on your router?" - "Well, I'm forwarding everything through it in order to be able to play _______" (Insert game name here) - "I see. Ok." An antivirus and a firewall will not help you if you are stupid enough to open the latest XXX e-mail that knocks on the door of your never-updated Outlook Express or if your password is 123456.

Why not just have everybody log in via a genetic print to web sites and so on? Then I would be able to know if you are the one that is questioning the ways of the government.