I think people resort back to X11 because it’s only think that worked for a broad sets of features.Sure we can have Wayland making progress but it seems there’s little resource targeted it, not even implementation but even standardizing some things and we’re 15 years past. Linux kernel itself was already at infamous 2.6 version by then.
Sure proprietary desktops have kind of shown the way. One side, it’s good to have standards clear/clean enough that it can be easily implemented, on the other side, it can just be especially resource taking to redevelop things that are the core difference of the desktop environnement you might be developing.
I can wonder and worry, if we would have and will still ever see something like compiz fusion, the diagonal screen tick seen this year or anything else. Design standards api, inter app communication and make it customizable is no way easy and I feel like Wayland has absolutely not find how to articulate all of those things.