> As opposed to the mess of X protocols which are elegant and working great?

They are clearly better, simpler and more tested then the conglomerate of protocol mess pertaining the Wayland ecosystem.

> The X11 protocol itself is insane.

According to whom? I would call Wayland insane. This is just your personal opinion

> Wayland does not have a perfect world here

X11 is not great, but Wayland is far worse also in this case. I agree.

> XInput was also not enough, so there is now XInput2.

X11 is designed to be extended. Wayland manages to be worse than all of that.

> Inter-app communication is handled via ICCCM

Wrong! ICCCM standardizes communication between window managers and clients. Which is one of the strengths of X11 and allowed a plethora of niche window managers to flourish.

X properties are not "abused" for IPC. They are a central part of it and far more elegant than abominations like dbus or Wayland.

> QXcb is known to have race conditions

Qt is more concerned with portability than being a X11 toolkit. That's why they are having problems.

> However, the design issues that X ran into are basically cemented into history at this point, and that's why it is not a viable path forward.

There are zero design issues with X. With the right extensions it can be a "viable" path forward.

> If your needs for a desktop haven't dramatically changed in the last couple of decades X11 is objectively better.

Indeed but even for today's needs in a world where screen sharing is one of the most important tasks of desktop computers X11 manages to be miles ahead of Wayland which does not even standardize basic functionality like screen sharing.

> I'm arguing that we need something that we can actually fucking improve and build the future on top of, and between X and Wayland as a base, it's not even close. It's Wayland. It has been Wayland.

What is your argument here? Wayland is shit but it is "the future"?

X11 is extensible by design and has been extended many times. In this way it "survived" many generations of graphics hardware starting from dual ported RAM and ending with GPU's where one is more powerful than all computers in the world combined at the time X11 was introduced.

> When most people talk about Wayland shortcomings, they're talking about things that actually can be improved and fixed, in some cases they're being fixed right now, in others it might take time but there's paths forward.

Waylanders are "fixing" things for 16 years now. This mantra is getting bit stale to say the least.

> When most people talk about X11 shortcomings, they're talking about things that will never, ever be fixed. Ever.

What exactly can never "EVER" be fixed on X11. Can't think of a single thing.

> The only thing that's been entertaining to me is that X was always the bane of our existence and the butt of many Linux user's jokes in around 2004

X11 was bad in 2004. But so was every other operating system that had to deal with a new type of graphics hardware. It was a symptom of technological progress.

Wayland was never great and due to the politics, its idiotic design and protocol hell it will never be.

> Now the impetus to move on from X11 is suddenly seen as hasty, despite the fact that it is definitely severely overdue.

The only thing that is overdue is putting Wayland into the trash where it belongs.