It is really easy to install plugins. I have a poor memory, so I have to work things out over and over. And every time I work out how to install a plugin I think "It can't be that easy!"
An awful lot of planning went into making sure of that. It's still evolving but basically that's the way it was designed to work.
(Do you mean your other thread? Not sure I got the full gist and am sure I cannot give any feedback. "bats-arse code"???)
OK, the phrase 'bats-arse' comes from Amiga Format interviewing Sensible Software about 'Wizkid' back in 1992 or 1993 and asking them what made the game so bizarre, and Sensible's reply was to the effect about what prompted them to make a 'bat's arse of a game'. It's weird, messed up completely but once seen... there's no going back.
No, the other thread is setting out how I want to do plugin servers, and as stated I want to keep the plugin server away from the core Wedge server, essentially (then a lot of it boils down to *how* that would work), while the other stuff is what is essentially required to drive a plugin server, including the need for authentication to allow for private plugins. Though there's still a raft of stuff around how checking for updates would work, and perhaps it would be best simply to have one master repo and only check against that, paid or otherwise. Or even just rip the entire thing out and have people do their own checking, I don't know. Lots of thoughts to it.
What I'm working on right now is getting plugins uploaded to the site without the user having to cope with setting permissions. This is more tricky than you might think.