Choosing between portability and innovation

It's because the graphics in Linux was not so much designed as it was puked up by accident. It's just something that has been cobbled together and extended to meet new needs instead of undergoing a entire rework like every other relevant OS (aka Windows and OS X). You have no less then 4 separate drivers running 3 separate graphics stacks. They all have overlapping jobs, use the same hardware, and drastically need to work together in a way that is nearly impossible.

It's one thing to treasure portability, but it's quite another when the OS you care about does not even offer the basic functionality that you need to run your applications and improve your graphics stack.

Forcing Linux developers to not only improve and fix Linux's problems, but also drag the BSD's kicking and screaming into the 21st century is completely unreasonable.

Ultimately if you really care about portability the BSD OSes are the least of your worries. It's OS X and Windows that actually matter.