Maybe he should reconsider his stance on microkernels. It would be interesting if the original GNU OS idea (Hurd) was revived. Splitting up the thing will into separate processes would certainly help against bloat.
Apple did that for a while with MkLinux before settling on NEXTSTEP. It ran fine on PPC Macs, and was based on a Mach microkernel. I converted lots of unused PowerMacintoshes nobody wanted (with MacOS 8 I can't blame them) at my then company to Unix workstations with that. When I later visited, every developer had one on their desk along their x86 PC.
