Then there should have been a set of core protocols, so for example, something like core-desktop. Going for the bare minimum just to be super flexible and support desktops, phones, tablets, fridges and graphics cards with RGB lighting is the typical overthinking that hurts everyone and slows adoption. Wayland was conceived in 2008, and has had paid full time devs working on it. For that, the current state is pretty pathetic.
The xdg-shell protocol is a sort of core desktop protocol. It has an opinion about everyone's favorite Wayland topic (server-side decorations), and if you have a different opinion, you need to use the xdg-decoration-unstable-v1 (as it still seems to be called) protocol. Fortunately, it seems like the Wayland desktop scene is converging on that one now.
There are still some missing pieces, but the situation isn't disastrous anymore.
