Good analysis.
The idea of distribution in tiny bits isn't unwelcome, as has been seen, it just needs some work, care and developer love. Providing that is most welcome, aspiring to inject it into the non-converts will most likely fail, judging by evidence of historical similar efforts. A few µPike make targets, a few Pikefarm clients who run them and some eager developers who monitor them will probably do wonders. Other notes (not arguments, just factors):
Development support:
* From a maintenance point of view, base Pike has rather well setup framework for testing, detection and follow-up on problems that creep up. This makes it very comfortable for core developers to stay with the infrastructural support (perhaps most prominently Pikefarm and Code Librarian; Bug Crunch might qualify too) provided for the main repository.
Driving forces:
* Reasoning from a core developer's perspective, bugfixes and adding capabilities is powered much by self interest in various forms. I'm sure similar forces exist to power separating Pike into tiny bits of distribution (Debian does by power of policy, with some success), but little of it seems present in present Pike maintainers.