Nice work – what's being done to make this the default behavior in node and deprecate node_modules proper, or is this forever destined to live in the awkward place of userland-but-not-really kind of territory?

People have already mentioned native modules. Install scripts are a nuisance, but exist for reasons. If you remove support for them – provided this project takes off, which I suppose it will because bandwagons – you risk people performing install-type tasks on first module load, potentially creating an even worse situation. Has this been considered as a risk?