Potential for a cumulative patch (or tarball)?

[Jack Nagel]

>From a package management standpoint it is somewhat cumbersome to
fetch the base 4.2 tarball and the 37 patches in order to build the
latest and greatest; it would simplify things greatly if there was a
cumulative patch (or a complete tarball, ideally).

Would something like this be possible? What are the reasons for the
current release/patch system?

Thanks.

Jack Nagel