I'll definitely take a look. I guess my feeling is that make, like some other tools (C++ comes to mind) happens to be Good Enough for what it does, despite its warts. Lots of new programmers get scared off by its weirdness and never really learn it.

But all you need to do is look at the Linux kernel or Android AOSP build systems (both implemented almost entirely in make) to see what it's capable of. Do we really need something better, given the friction that variant build systems cause?