I will say, a dbus setup is no way needed for a modern DE, take a look at windows, Mac OS, or even Android. Dbus is a linux thing, but software that is designed to work on other OS, quietly fails and does it in another fashion for OS that don't have dbus. Sure you could have dbus on windows, even qt will compile the dbus client portion; but you still need the server end that handles the back-end portion of dbus to work.
For me, the biggest issue dbus has is more of everything is trying to use it when it isn't needed. Does PulseAudio really need dbus? Generally, you don't restrict sound playback in only specific users; so why bother? Config? Few programs will look at some other program's configs unless they are designed to work together. A browser doesn't really need to use dbus, since it is a user level program; there is better ways to restrict than using dbus. Configs again, look above. Anything else a browser, could easily use a simple api command to access the applicable resource it needs ( like sound, webcam, mic, and others).
Even the assistive technology, shouldn't be using dbus as much as it is. Anything that wants to provide to that, should just merely listen and have the assistive technology stuff should publish a simple statement of the direct communication that apps are to communicate to, not push entire webpages, books and everything else onto a bus system.
For me, the biggest issue dbus has is more of everything is trying to use it when it isn't needed. Does PulseAudio really need dbus? Generally, you don't restrict sound playback in only specific users; so why bother? Config? Few programs will look at some other program's configs unless they are designed to work together. A browser doesn't really need to use dbus, since it is a user level program; there is better ways to restrict than using dbus. Configs again, look above. Anything else a browser, could easily use a simple api command to access the applicable resource it needs ( like sound, webcam, mic, and others).
Even the assistive technology, shouldn't be using dbus as much as it is. Anything that wants to provide to that, should just merely listen and have the assistive technology stuff should publish a simple statement of the direct communication that apps are to communicate to, not push entire webpages, books and everything else onto a bus system.