Seems like a pretty negative outlook overall. Progress has definitely been slower than many of us would like, but that's understandable considering that most Linux Audio programs are maintained by single developers (with lots of other projects) or small groups. I'm surprised you didn't mention Luppp, libmapper, or the resurgence of ZynAddSubFX developement. I think the KXStudio project represents a *huge* amount of progress as far as integration and user experience goes.

My personal frustration with Linux Audio is mainly focused on the seemlingly iron-clad (but flawed) JACK API. We've needed the ability to rename clients and have ports with arbitrary event payloads (to allow MIDI, OSC, or whatever other streams to be managed via the JACK connection graph and frame clock) for years. And, even though many proposals have been made and patches submitted, it doesn't look like the JACK API is ever going to be improved--which doesn't speak well at all for the future of modular audio on Linux (such improvements are unnecessary for monolithic applications such as Ardour since they duplicate all this functionality internally) . If an API is going to be fixed and rigid, it must also be extensible (like LV2).

Still, I remain committed to improving Linux Audio and generally optimistic about the future.