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I've been mulling this idea since Paris, trying to figure out the best way to present it.

But basically:

We want a smaller, slimmer, efficient core.
But we also want Drupal to, like, be useful.
We want contrib, at least the high-use end of contrib, to be smoother, more organized, released on time with core.
It's been suggested we have a contrib maintainer, who would have the unenviable task of managing a huge kaboodle.

So on the one hand we want to move things out of core, into contrib: things like poll, blog, even forum and profile. However, moving out to contrib is currently recognized as being a death sentence for the code itself, and dooming users to the curse of a million Lego bricks (to quote webchick).

On the other hand, we want better underpinning for the contrib modules that really make Drupal what it is: views, CCK (what's left of it out of core), panels, flag, voting, token, and so on.

These two things actually seem the same to me: define an Outer Core. This would be a fairly loose collection of modules, not simply the 40 most popular, but those that provide important functions, play well together. Outer Core would get a maintainer or two, to ensure good use of APIs, generalization and abstraction of common code where possible, no duplication of code or features, and plan releases.

Drupal the framework would be just the core.
Drupal the product would be core + outer core. We'd release both simultaneously, available as a single download.

End result, I hope: we tame a sizable part of the Big Lego Brick Box.

Okay, so I lied. But module builder can save you a lot of time when writing custom modules.

And it now works with drush, too. I added support for drush a few weeks ago, which let you do things like "$ drush mb mymodule cron init menu nodeapi --write" and hey presto, a new module folder is created, with an info file and a module file, with hook implementations ready to do your (evil) bidding. (Note: this blog does not sanction use of Drupal, module builder, or drush for evil.)

If you're super lazy you can even say "$ drush mb mymodule cron init menu nodeapi --go", using the wash 'n' go option which writes all the files and enables the new module for you. But don't do this if you're writing an install or enable hook, as they won't have any code in them!

The downside was that you needed to install module builder into each Drupal installation you wanted to generate modules for. Bit of a pain if you're developing a few sites and have a few more test sites kicking around.

But no more! You can now stick the module builder folder wherever drush can find it, and build modules in any Drupal 6 installation. You can download hook data to that installation with "$drush mbdl", or store it in a central location by specifying the --data option.

You might say at this point, core hooks are all very good, but what about hooks for CCK, Views, Ubercart, and so on? Well, like all good modules, module builder comes with a hook. Implement hook_module_builder_info, tell it where you hook documentation can be found on the interwebs, and add your module's distinctiveness to module builder's sugary goodness.

And how might you do this?

With module builder, of course!