When I read through the release announcements of most Linux distributions, the updates seem repetitive and uninspired—typically featuring little more than a newer kernel, a desktop environment upgrade, and the latest versions of popular applications (which have nothing to do with the distro itself). It feels like there’s a shortage of meaningful innovation, to the point that they tout updates to Firefox or LibreOffice as if they were significant contributions from the distribution itself.
It raises the question: are these distributions doing anything beyond repackaging the latest software? Are they adding any genuinely useful features or applications that differentiate them from one another? And more importantly, should they be?
There are 2 kinds of distributions. Ones that are on customization side and those on stability side.
For example Debian, Fedora, and arguably Arch are on stability side. They are intended for people that want things to work predictably and software to be packaged and shipped as the developer intended it. Customization or lack of it is up to the user.
Distributions like Manjaro, Zorin OS, Elementary OS, LMDE or even Linux XP are have a given goal to a particular customization. Either a set of tweaks, a particular look or even their own desktop environment or set of software they develop themselves.
This means that the first kind would have the most boring update, as they just ship new and correctly integrated software. While the second kind would provide very nice customisations or patching of their own to their environment.