Two major problems I have with all of this are:

1) Any use of makefiles with init(8) implies that make(1) will have to
be moved to /bin.  This bloats the root partition; make is NOT a small
binary.  (Although a statically linked make may be a good thing to
have when you do something Bad to ld.so.)

2) Whatever system you come up with will have to fit on a boot floppy
someday.  It's hard enough as it is to fit everything that's needed
onto a boot floppy (right, Chris?).
-- 
Mike Long <mike.long@analog.com>           http://www.shore.net/~mikel
VLSI Design Engineer         finger mikel@shore.net for PGP public key
Analog Devices, CPD Division          CCBF225E7D3F7ECB2C8F7ABB15D9BE7B
Norwood, MA 02062 USA                assert(*this!=opinionof(Analog));