There was a time when I enjoyed that kind of effort. Now I have a job in I.T. and a toddler that I want to spend my free time with.
When I use my personal/private computer, I just want my software to work and I want to be able to keep it patched with minimal effort.
In a way I'm glad Slackware has kept to the original ideals. I enjoyed using it from the 3 series through 7 at least. I remember people getting their knickers in a twist when he jumped version numbers. In those days I had a custom kernel that I wove patches into. Big O scheduler, usb support, agpart support, some other stuff I can't remember. I remember wanting low latency because MP3s skipped otherwise.
It was fun, but back then hacking on Linux kernel patches and building things from source was my hobby.
I remember loading Linux into a powermac 4400 because I could, and I used it as my always-on IRC machine.