i forget who said it now, but, after a fair bit of thinking since last
night, i've really decided i like the idea of defining what parts of
the boot procedure depend on what, and then letting "something" (be it
automated [preferably the default], or manual [something i wouldn't
want to not have]) order them in some directory under /etc (maybe
/etc/boot for the final place, and /etc/init for the `source'?  why do
we have to deal with silly names like /etc/xxx.d, and the like ?).

i'd like it do be something like this:

/etc/init/net
/etc/init/nfs
/etc/init/...

and /etc/init/DEPEND (or what ever) would contain what ever we need to
have these ordered in some way, and then, maybe, the Makefile in
/etc/init would order them in to /etc/boot.  and have /etc/rc be the
script that does the 'for a in /etc/init/*; do . $a start; done'
stuff.

i'm not 100% sure about it, but, i'm warming more and more to this the
more i think about it.