I agree with the points you are making. As for loss of interest for making things graphical, in my case it's just a lack of time. If I had time, SnowflakeOS would have my contributions.

Is there a good way of mixing and mashing JSON attribute sets with conventional nix config files? Perhaps relegating some config to machine-generated JSON, and some hand crafted configs?

For sure. I'm on mobile right now but something like

{...}:
builtins.fromJson( 
  builtins.readFile ./path/to/configuration.json
)

and importing that in your configuration.nix should do the trick. You have handcrafted stuff in another nix file, but it will be your responsibility to make it work with the imported/managed JSON. Maybe SnowflakeOS even does that. I'm not sure.

Anti Commercial-AI license