https://askubuntu.com/questions/18418/how-can-i-set-which-application-is-launched-by-xdg-open

You might want to configure xdg to open what you want instead.

Unless other distros switch away from coreutils, it will remain the standard. It seems a lot of work for little/no upside.

So, they will have to continue to support feature for feature, bug for bug with coreutils and others forever? What’s the endgame here?

If /home and /var are on disk and not USB then it might be ok. The rest of the os is typically only written when installing or configuring things.

Try it, might be fun.