Sadly I read that as "Other tools do their own thing so we decided to do our own thing too" :(
Though admittedly, "convenience for users" is a rather tricky thing to define, as you really need to define "which users". I imagine ~/.projectname is easier getting started out, but the long term management is why we (try) to have standard locations for things.
Agreed. Unfortunately requirements for long term management / large scale deployment aren't a priority until a tool is widely adopted, which is best achieved by keeping it simple. An interesting trade off...
Though admittedly, "convenience for users" is a rather tricky thing to define, as you really need to define "which users". I imagine ~/.projectname is easier getting started out, but the long term management is why we (try) to have standard locations for things.