> If you're going to rely on a fancy shell anyway, why not just throw make out of the loop altogether?

I think can still add value in that scenario as the standard project entrypoint. Someone completely new to the project should be able to `make help`, `make install`, etc. Even if the make targets are simple wrappers to project specific tooling (npm, pip, sbt, etc). If the Makefile is kept simple, then users can treat it as a form of README and should be able to cherry-pick from it as they see fit.

But yeah, I share your sentiment about quirky, non-portable Makefiles potentially being anti-value.