Well it is now time that we examine the possibility of bringing the monetary resources together for building the Drupal installer in order to encourage the completion such a system. My company would take responsibility for having such a module built, but we think it appropriate to leave it up to Adrian, who has already been working on this project, to bring it to completion with some monetary support from the community. We however are more than willing to take on such a task if it is asked of us.
Current work on the installer, some of which is over a year old can be found here:
http://daemon.co.za/stories/drupal_install
http://drupal.org/node/5646
http://drupal.org/node/18960
A few suggestions/comments:
In addition to what Adrian has suggested, we think a module that would fetch a list of current modules from Drupal.org and would download and install these modules. In addition, suggestions for a simple text config file that describes the simple installation process should be included in each released module and a simple text file can be generated from the releases to inform the live installer of new modules available.
These are just some basic points, let the discussion begin on how this can be brought to fruition and included in the core, or even as an addon, whichever is preferable. We need an amount required, an account set up on donage, and official requirements drawn up (which, again, we would be happy to do).