One of the main problems that users of older hardware tend to have is the lack of a math co-processor. I'm not sure if this has ever been corrected as my old Pentium machine was donated to charity about six months ago, so I can't test it anymore.
This is a fairly big problem as it alienates a large chunk of users with old-ass hardware, some of the very people we're trying to reach with DSL. A simple kernel recompile turning on math co-processor emulation will fix this problem without affecting users of newer machines. It causes no slowdown, whatsoever, and might enlarge the kernel by a few k.
So, why hasn't it been done yet?