1. That's for convergence mode.
   When used with an external display, a keyboard and mouse you cannot swipe...
2. That's the way to go since customization is not the priority for the core team and nobody stepped out to propose a customization menu yet.

1. I don't see the point of the big, ugly, orange launcher button, since you can open launcher easily by swipe, (which you have to do most of the time anyway),
2. I don't like the way that the home wallpaper is permanantly on the launcher background, as if it's a transparent launcher on the desktop. It's cheap looking.

I changed them via qmls...

At the moment, the solution found is considered a hack because there is no clean way to add or remove the "background" apps in a confined way.

One is welcome to add a feature to the OS allowing:
1- To run a confined app instead of the background.
2- To configure which app to act as background.
3- To force running this app at all time while not breaking the confinement.
4- The configured app cannot be killed (it should not appear as an open app)

This brings a lot of questions and is an architectural nightmare.
But this can be achieved I guess, given a lot of time and effort.

So to summarize: no one is blocking any effort in that way.
But hacking the system with "a simple hack" is not enough work to get integrated into the OS.
Many use cases have to be considered before accepting a PR to add a new feature to the OS.
Reviewing PR is not an easy job I can assure you.

a) suggest improvements
b) implement the best of them
c) make satisfied customers that pay a contribution.

I pay my contribution as soon as the system works on my phone.

must be optional because the current situation is agreed by many people who don't want more than this.
BR

I can't imagine an other way that make custom home/desktop optional, if made, and i believe no one can.
But if you take a look at how many downloads gets Home and Launcher Modular, you'll understand many people want more than a "pet show"

Now wouldn't that be a good thing that devs from thoses apps want/can contribute directly to port those features to core OS ?

There have also been discussions about making the app Drawer a place where the user can pin an application to -- as in, every time they boot the device, their chosen app runs and its window is positioned inside the Drawer element. That way you've always got one app which you can drag out.

This is also the case for making the "area that shows when no apps are running" (you might call it the desktop, but it doesn't work like that right now, I'll call it the Background) a place where a running app window can be placed.

Ultimately, any of these are possible. There are questions that need to be answered as always:

• What happens if the special app crashes?
• How do you get back to the special app? (irrelevant in the case of the drawer)
• How does the user set it up?
• What if someone sets up an app that can't actually launch other apps?
• What happens when the display size changes? Changes back?
• Who's gonna answer these questions and code the solution?

The people being paid to work on Ubuntu Touch have bigger fish to fry right now: Ubuntu Touch must become based on Ubuntu 20.04, and we must pay back technical debt accrued since 2012 to do so. Ubuntu Touch must have VoLTE support soon, else our phones will become unusable as phones. So we've got our work cut out for us. A solution that makes the Drawer or Background a customizable app area could exist, and it could even work. But then, changes to Lomiri (and system-settings, and anything else you need to touch to make this possible) must be carefully self-tested and user-tested. We require this to keep Ubuntu Touch running smoothly. It's a lot of work, but it's doable. Who will be the one to do it?

to reserve the lower-right ~90% of the screen for pet pictures.

On that note, here's Jess and Henry enjoying a dip in Mangaokewa Stream in the Waikato.

frame

Barring further explanation, I think that's exactly the design goal: to reserve the lower-right ~90% of the screen for pet pictures.

Nobody is saying apps MUST be on the background

One could be forgiven for believing that this was in fact said by the OP.

I don't want anything polluting my background picture

+1 for the nice puppy picture

Who wants nothing on it let it empty, who wants to add some apps icons on it can, same for widgets, same for folders (for sorting apps or for files), etc...

I don't think this is chaotic by the way :

In the other way, not being able to sort apps in the app drawer can be very chaotic when you have lot of apps in it.