Not if you ask me. A restriction the apps i can use comfortably is not a price I will pay. My GIMP doesn't work in the way you describe. I agree that's not magical. I am unable to install the latest Ximian package for GIMP because of a file conflict with my CUPS-drivers package.
Ideal conditions exist only in testtubes.
Mandrake packaged my printer software and Ximian packaged my Gnome software and despite the best intentions and efforts of each there is still a conflict with escputils that prevents me from installing the latest Ximian GIMP and possibly that prevents me from enjoying the benefit of Nautilus' drag and drop interaction with it. This is still not a problem in DFM though. I am totally unconcerned with the purity of technical approaches used im my desktop environment and equally careless of the guilt or innocence of one application or another. I am a user. What assists in that goal I like, what poses an obstruction to that I avoid.