zpm is in active developpement and Sparky would want to make it handle others distro than Zenwalk/Slackware.
He told me he wanted to handle many repos and others thinks like that.
For about the main idea of the new distro - is it really named "alcoholix" ??? - I'm in the oppposite direction of Gapan. I see a distro which is based on Slackware/Zenwalk but that do not try to be compatible. One of the thinks that I dislike in Zenwalk is that the distro does not go forward and is not innovative because of the willing to be compatible with Slackware. We rely on Slackware way of release and advancement.
If one software (A) is updated in slackware and we take another one (B) that depends on it, we must update A in the same time, and all others packages that depend on A. Other scenarios like this had made huge headaches on Zenwalk... If we TAKE slackware (or Zenwalk) packages, but afterwards, it's ours, we could better manage the versions tree. It will be painless.
For me the harder work is when doing a package for the first time, and when a software change a significant vertsion (like KDE or the like). Most of the time, a simple recompile with the new software versions is enough.
I really like the ZENBUILD way of building packages. It's simple and readable. Packages are generated in a good and standard way.
I also like the KISS in Zenwalk, and the One Application Per Task. It's not because Zenwalk is now quite non-innovative, than we mustn't take the good of it

Let's make a Zenwalk++ distro

But I think here, everybody's agree
What is important for me is that the distro must have a kernel of people who takes big decisions, and not just one man/woman. A pseudo-democratical way of leading is better than one person.
The way of submit new/updated packages must also be more trackable than in Zenwalk, a real test team must be set (eventually one for each category), ZUR is a really good idea and must be take into consideration (cloned, used, ...)
That's a bit of thinks that come out of my mind for now.