>>1
Sounds like autoconf/automake is something that was envisioned during a time span longer than a visit to a public shithouse. But that's a flattering assumption because nothing actually was envisioned. Everything related in anyway to autoconf/automake and make too, are fixes to problems that these abhorrences by themself demands to be fixed to reach the unholy grail in unix-land of "good enough functionality".
It was just a bunch of kids who clobbered this mess together as they went along. Not a single thought behind it. Prove me otherwise.
So, you're telling me it would be hard to come up with something better in let's say 15 minutes and implement it in a couple of hours?
Definitely isn't, heck I even did it as a teenager by using the given tree structure of directories (useful to tell dependencies) and some easily remembered syntaxes for directories and files to tell how things should be compiled (which wasn't even needed).
You demostrate a clear case of unixisis, mesmerized by shit and lacking ability to think critically.