It seems the biggest issue is that cpanel/plesk makes it easy for non-system administrators to setup a web hosting company. I don't think a cpanel competitor could solve that problem.
Well, competitors have existed since a decade ago, but many have also died. The closest competitor now seems to be Plesk, but it hasn't been able to snatch the crown from cPanel yet. If I remember it, Plesk 7 or 8 for Windows is a mess. All software suck :)
I work for a host which depends on cpanel. I've co-written an application similar to Fantastico called QuickInstall and it integrates with cPanel. (well, I did the rewrite - don't blame me for version 1!).
cpanel is mind bogglingly stupid. It packages its own Perl binary which is incompatible with a lot of modern modules and features. The API has way too much unnecessary cruft. On top of that, the interface is hideous and unorganized.
I pushed to rewrite it but apparently people really depend on it and will jump ship.
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 31.2 ms ] threadcpanel is mind bogglingly stupid. It packages its own Perl binary which is incompatible with a lot of modern modules and features. The API has way too much unnecessary cruft. On top of that, the interface is hideous and unorganized.
I pushed to rewrite it but apparently people really depend on it and will jump ship.