Then looks like AEROS is right for your needs imo
Exactly!
Although I don't think that any of the Arix developers would object to someone building a version of Arix later that has some of the functionality of AEROS. Maybe one with less bloat if the modified kernel takes up less space than the full Linux kernel, or if they implement a lightweight X-windows environment to allow most Linux apps to run, while keeping out as much bloat code as possible.
But it appears that this is not the goal of ARIX and that they are only concerned with taking advantage of the Linux drivers, not the userland or Linux apps.
One of the ARIX developers will correct me if my assumptions are wrong.