"Things did eventually work out. But I'm waiting for a window to open to side-grade to CentOS 6"
This I believe sums up the underlying community experience that is open for improvement in the Fedora ecosystem. Instead of trying to re-invent Fedora so it meets the needs of long timescale deployments, is a transitional process from Fedora to CentOS or RHEL achievable for users who need it? Can work be done to make it easier for a Fedora installation to be transitioned into a CentOS or RHEL deployment when the local admin decides the rapid rate of change in Fedora is no longer suitable for the deployment situation?
Would the admins who would potentially benefit from this sort of transitional effort inside the Fedora ecosystem of distributions contribute their own time into finding a way to ease such a transition?
Can we build a process that let each of the distributions do what they do best, but helped users move from one ecosystem offering to another based on an evolving understanding of their local needs? I think that would be a very interesting challenge, both difficult and potentially very rewarding for people.