Why a new distribution?

(To be fully honest: I'm rather one of those who wouldn't have put that question, because I consider a distro as far more than just "a heap of packages [1]" -- but I'm still glad someone posed this question, because your answer was thoroughly enjoyable, to me).

[1] It's interesting to see here the ages-old reductionist vs. holist thingy :-) aka "is the whole just the sum of its parts or not?"