> Every time I have to fill a "shopping cart" for a US government data download I die a little.

I've worked in gov/civic tech for 5+ years and, as you're probably aware, there is now a highly lucrative business in centralizing and consequently selling easy access to this data to lobbyists/fortune 500s/nonprofits.

USDS/18f are sort of addressing this, but haven't really made a dent in the market afaik since they're focusing on modernizing specific agencies rather than centralizing everything.