Yeah, I'd like to see someone do a modern rewrite of the whole TeX/LaTeX/XeTeX/XeLaTeX/etc. mess. Something that has modern syntax and support for modern features (such as output to PDF, HTML, even OOXML).
It would be good to see UTF-8 natively supported, and for all the common packages to be absorbed into the core libraries. Right now, you can sometimes find 2 or 3 different packages that do the same thing, often with varying benefits. Take the best package, add the missing features from the other packages, and bundle it all into one distribution. For example, the absolutely horrible table support, where merging cells is a nightmare.
Indeed, once you get set up with LaTeX it's okay, but if I were to go and make a new essay I'd have a hard time remembering wtf packages I used for the last one and what they actually did.
It would be good to see UTF-8 natively supported, and for all the common packages to be absorbed into the core libraries. Right now, you can sometimes find 2 or 3 different packages that do the same thing, often with varying benefits. Take the best package, add the missing features from the other packages, and bundle it all into one distribution. For example, the absolutely horrible table support, where merging cells is a nightmare.