I recalled that the 2012 theme was often used as a starter theme and was hopeful that 2020 would play the same role. It seems though that 2020 was stripped down from its inspiration. There were probably good reasons for that but ...

@Justin Tadlock, why not have a core theme that includes a fair number of Customizer options, hooks, and "canvas" templates for landing pages? People could then create child themes or use it as a base for a fork.

An optional standard base seems like it makes sense.