Mandriva's distro has big potential but not used. Some minor (sometimes even basic) corrections and modifications, and a real communication effort (when it is told about Linux in general Press thee is only one name...) could make it a leader in terms of popularity (not in term of business).
Will it be the case with Mageia?

I totally agree to that and I hope Mageia will make this happen.

But I also agree that at this time Mageia has to saddle as a fork, structures have to be build, etc.

Plus, we wouldn't use Mandriva if we don't like the way it works. So no need to change to deb or make Gnome the primer Desktop Env. or stuff like that

My dream would be a very User and Admin friendly Disto

One Installer CD for Desktop Dualarch - metapacks for the desktop env
One Installer CD for a Serverversion inkl. LXDE + MMC-base and metapaks for some spezial apps inkl. the MMC modules (and pulse)
One Installer CD for a Virtualserver using f.e. OpenVZ and a MMC based webui and some community templates

In my opinion with this simple trippelisation you can arrange all kind of home, business, school, multimedia, netbook ... structures you ever imagine all with one Distro.

just my 5eurocent,

greetings from belgium, Sascha