I find much easier to keep up with the Slackware development cycle and maintain sets of tagfiles.
I have two sets for KDE and XFCE installations. That way installing Slackware at any time for any reason from a local source takes about 5 minutes.

I don't quite get this. AFIAC, Ubuntu is much more Windows-like than Slack.

Variety is not a Windows thing (nor it is a Ubuntu thing, but that is Ubuntu's choice; that choice is consistent with their mission and that's okay).

Slack opens doors; Windows closes them and dares you to open them.

I have Ubuntu boxes and Slackware boxes (I have also used Debian, which I really like, CentOS, and several other distros). I much prefer Slackware.

Windows (and Ubuntu) provides one or at most two apps per task. Slackware gives me choices.

Windows offers one interface which allows me to change the colors sort of. Slackware offers six, each one of them configurable to my taste (I prefer Fluxbox).

Windows offers Notepad, perhaps the lamest text editor ever; it makes DOSEDIT look good (if you do Windows and want a good text editor, get the Semware editor--Semware is the only program I miss from my Windows days). Slackware offers you several.

Windows offers you Windows Media Player; you have to go out and find the others. Slackware offers you umpty-ump media players (no, I am not a big fan of Gxine, but I do like Xine and XMMS, though I find VLC more versatile).

Furthermore, Slackware does not include Pulseaudio. (I have never experienced on any Slackware box the audio issues I run into daily on Ubuntu.)

Ubuntu offers me gedit, of which I can say that it's better than Notepad. Slackware offers me severak text editors, all of them equal to or better than gedit.

Just as I have several different Philips screwdrivers with tips of different thicknesses, angles, and sizes for different but similar screws, my Slackware box gives me sets of tools for different but similar tasks.

There is nothing redundant about about having multiple tools for multiple tasks in one's toolkit.

Redundancy is having the same tool over and over again.

I actually meant to say that "one program per task" reminds me of Windows and its restrictions. Sorry if I was unclear.

The tool analogy is pretty good. Now to me Slackware's system looks awesome :D

I'm so glad I found Slackware :)