For the 'background' this list may be too long - and the concepts too complex for a quick overview in the background. (e.g. without explaining each individually, with references). Could we summarize these as a few points? Distinct generalizing concepts that come to mind are interoperability and modularity at multiple levels, skill assessment / hypothesis testing / reproducibility, and distributed computation. I think that such a list could cover the scope of this list without providing enough detail to require further explanation at this point. This particular list is a good start, but at this resolution they could be more effectively addressed individually with more explanation, references and examples. Perhaps in a table. In addition, it seems that existing workflows address a number of these features, so we could perhaps fill out a feature matrix.