Also, what are the levels of "path dependence" that you're referring to?A process model which makes checkpointing and migration difficult, hierarchical file systems, lack of OS-level typed modules, strict kernel-userspace segmentation, the various flavors of user and group IDs for isolation and privilege segmentation, global namespaces (somewhat minimized these days, but nothing close to a Spring name service or even Plan 9 namespaces), the file interface and the pseudo-file travesty of "special files" (fuck ioctl(2)s), Berkeley sockets, units of execution/threads bound to address spaces/tasks (at least in userspace), no capabilities (modulo bolt-ons like Capsicum which are still experimental), lack of reliable kernel process management and child tracking primitives necessitating supervision schemes, general trend towards monolithic kernel subsystems rather than userland services, lack of reliable messaging IPC mechanism but instead proliferation of many primitive and homegrown solutions, lack of orthogonal persistence, frequent lack of proper metadata indexing/relational querying beyond seeking for byte streams, dynamic linking instead of dynamic binding, lack of network transparency, etc. etc.
ZFS, jails/zones/containers, DTrace, MDB, etc.
Nothing about those are innovative. You just have an obvious bias for Sun, given your origins. ZFS was an incremental evolution from VxFS and IBM systems. Same for containers, coming from IBM i and possibly earlier. DTrace isn't even necessary on systems with dynamic object introspection. mdb? Seriously? If you consider that one of the great advances in OS research over the past 15 years, may God help OS research.
I have a copy in my basement, if no other copy exists, and I would gladly make it available to you if only to force you to see it as it was and not as you wish it to have been.
I will gladly accept that challenge and write an article documenting my experiences. Please give me an email address to contact.