>Arguably the problem isn't the display server

No. If you tell users they should switch to a new display server, you shouldn't be surprised if no one takes you up on it if you don't provide basic feature parity.

If you tell DE/WM devs they should use your new protocol, but say it's now their responsibility to do all these things that the old display server did for them, don't be surprised if it doesn't get much traction.

I don't for the life of me understand why wayland took off. It's provided no benefit to the average user, or DE/WM dev, and a whole lot of hassle.