I'm a slacker. While I use and appreciate other systems, my personal systems run Slackware. Why? It's a simple answer with a complex explanation.
Most distributions provide unique and varying solutions to problems like package management, system initialization, configuration management, and so on. In each of these systems, you will invariably find issues where packages have been modified or patched in ways that make them subtly different from the author's documentation, or the helpful advice of others. In many cases, distribution-specific configuration systems significantly alter the way packages are configured. While this is often done to be helpful to the admin, it often results in configurations that differ greatly between distributions, which is often frustrating for an admin.
Slackware, in constrast, tries very hard to stay true to the original author's intended use of the code. Package configuration is never done automatically, instead Slackware relies on admins to read the documentation and hand-edit configurations files. Maintaining a Slackware system certainly requires more work, but if you're willing to do so, you also attain the gift of greater understanding of what is going on in your system. It's really all about the principle of least surprise. Everything is as it's described on the label.
Put simply, I choose Slackware not because it provides things that make Linux better. I choose Slackware because it provides nothing that makes Linux worse.
If you have questions or comments about these packages, please email me at bytex64@bytex64.net.