No one in their right mind would ship Pulseaudio (amongst other things)
Right, nobody in their right mind would do that.
Except that everybody is doing it, and it works just fine. But the dinousars who got an opinion about pulsesaudio several years ago and don't know that these days pulseaudio works fine and provides features that nobody else does will never change their mind.
No, It doesn't work "just fine"
No, my opinion is not based on an older version of PA. PA is bad NOW, before it was even worse
Except that everybody is doing it, and it works just fine.
Maybe that's why there are several discussions about removing/disabling PA from Ubuntu (and others)
provides features that nobody else does
Like what? Using more CPU for audio than for playing a video? (yes, I did this test)
Increased delay from 'start playing' to actually playing (try it with mplayer)
So yeah, I guess I'm a dinossaur for wanting my SW to work without BS, without hogging my CPU and failing to work properly half of the time (again, newest version). Yeah, sound mixing, per app volume, makes me wonder when was the last time I needed that (especially with most apps having their own volume control)