Having a large number of distributions is not a problem per se except it may cause some confusion to the larger population who forms the "average" if you will. Having code tweaked for more esoteric needs is good in two ways - boy don't you love something that you got in that just helped you solve a pesky problem? I guess instead of hurting (in the sense of causing confusion) it may help - any code changes for the masses would just be quite a trivial excercise - the innards have always open kind of and quite accessible - Microsoft has just embarked on this path and is allowing prime ministers and presidents of different countries of the world a peek into its Windows code.