I seem to disagree in almost everything you say.
Your proposal has two - imho: major - drawbacks.
By putting libraries
anywhere (outside any searchpath) and loading them per preferences, you
loose the ability to 'activate' libraries on the fly from the patch
with [declare]
I don't see a good reason to proactively work against this as you seem to
do.
In my understanding, the user should just know what libraries to
download and the rest is done by the patch by using the right
[declare}s. Also, by preventing [declare] from working - as you propose
> > there's a deep rift between the factions.
>
> Ok, I don't know about that
Now you know.
By 'new way' you mean that libraries should be installed anywhere and
added to the preferences?
It appears to me that you created this mess by requesting that ~/Library/Pd should be replaced by ~/Documents/Pd (in macOS, at least).
I couldn't care less about macOS, but in my opinion the fact that you need to hit Shift-Cmd-G to
graphically visit this folder doesn't warrant this change in Pd.
Why does the user need to check that folder anyway, since
Deken already manages it quite well?
sorry for saying it directly - which you are at least partially responsible for.