Operating Systems

[Ninjis]

So I've had some questions about the current state of today's operating systems, their futures and questions about OSs in general running through my mind lately. I'm a CS major, but I haven't had my Operating System course yet and I know that some of these questions may be answered then, but I'm impatient. I know there are several very knowledgeable people here in the community, that's why I'm posting here, and I'd like to get to insight and opinions on the subject. All I ask is that we try to avoid any Windows vs Mac vs Linux flame wars. So here we go.

What should be the central purpose/focus of an OS?
What functionality should an OS have out of the box?
What functionality should the system kernel be responsible for?
What, if anything, should have access to the kernel and to what degree?
What features in todays OSs are you satisfied with?
What should be expanded upon?
What should be scraped and built anew?
What key features are missing from todays OSs that should be implemented?
Where do todays OSs fail?

This is just a start and I'll edit the post as other questions come to me.