APC Magazine provides an article that critics source based distributions.
I agree on most of these, but I have some comments:
First, Open Sources is, uhm, about the source code. So source distribution provides something very valuable; they keep people near the source.
Second, if you don’t have a lot of time then simply don’t use a source based distribution.
I would like a distribution that don’t tie me to compile everything from source. I would like the option to go only binary, or only source. Most of the time I use binaries for the things I don’t care, and source for the ones I do. I haven’t found such kind of distribution, I have to use a binary distribution and compile the things I want to tweak.
I think distributions haven’t evolved that much on several years, and I wish that could change.
Felipe Contreras 