The only option I can think of would be to use a vm. Unless all your apps support restoring sessions, I don't think there's any mechanism to do so globally. Getting stuff to start automatically or as a group using a script is easy enough, but that's less than half your problem as you've described it.
Genrawir
Do tell. a quick search didn't return anything too salacious.
Solving the fragmented community problem is something I've been pondering too, and the meta-community idea you described seems interesting.
Obviously, a proper technical solution will be difficult. Federation comes with a host of challenges, as well as benefits.
Giving communities the opportunity to be open to other like minded people on different instances would be beneficial to the network, for a number of reasons.
If two communities on different instances have the same name, it doesn't seem crazy to ask each of them if they'd like to federate with each other.
That way, apart from instances defederating, discussions could continue even if individual servers go down.
Of course, people love to hold on to their little fiefdoms, so the issue is as much social as technical.
If your setup allows you to be a productive member of society, you're golden mental health wise. /s
You may want to get your eyes checked if watching HD video on a tiny screen seems preferable unless all your content fits your displays native resolution; I am fairly certain my eyes are terrible. Maybe that's why I love that dark themes are becoming more popular.
Transparency is nice, but Windows Vista is partially what converted me to Linux. I dislike rounded corners too, since content is always rectangular.
I don't know why no mainstream desktop OS really has a good mouse driven tiling setup out of the box. I have a dual screen setup, so I mostly just full screen apps and alt tab if needed which reduces distraction. If I'm trying to focus on a single thing, the second screen gets turned off.
I find myself becoming more minimalist over time as well. Society seems to be more distraction driven by the day, so having an OS that stays out of the way is a boon.