I'd beg to differ.
I've customized my phone to run at nearly the optimum setup for me. Which is a huge strength of (custom rom) Android: flexibility. The only thing that's missing is true multitasking, but I have a large heap so more apps stay in the background and I kill the ones that I'm closing just by holding the Back button...so even then its not far off.

Galaxy NOTE N7000.
Latest 4.04 ICS. AOKang modifications.
Apex/Miui launcher. Custom lockscreen.
Custom transitions. Custom Multitasker.
Custom theme and custom notifications.
Favourite Apps, some customized (ad removed, inverted).
Root, SuperSU, Terminal, VNC (not used often).

I only need to get rid of VNC for Necesitas...and hopefully a custom kernel based on (official) Samsung ICS-NOTE and hybrid Linux kernel (AML project). That would be better than Alien Dalvik-Harmattan combination.