I think the most important thing to to hide the complexity of systems like x11 from the user. x11 for example has a million functions, but in reality the user only needs to see a tiny subset of those, presented in a simple and familiar way. This goes for most parts of most linux user space components.
I dont know what "million functions" you speak of - yes, there is complexity, but that's mostly due to complexity in hardware. Today you can with some luck do without any xorg.conf already, and let xorg use HAL to figure out the hardware and best suited driver and options - is this what you want? Because, if it is, then you also need HAL and friends. Also you would want to bring in dbus, and then you need... and... and then... and before you know it, your cut down linux isnt so cut down anymore.
I assume you want anubis to work with network? wireless? bluetooth? usb? audio? MIDI? video? All those bring in not just kernel drivers, but heaploads of userland tools - do you intend to rewrite all the tools, and also be able to maintain all of this over time as new hardware, standards and protocols emerge? Is this really what you want to spend time on, or isnt it more appealing to just create an amigaish desktop environment that can use and benefit from all the underlying "ugliness"?
