I'm not hugely informed about it either. As for the stupid name, I think it's one of those things e.g. MtGox that started out as an in-joke and then got serious.
It seems to be quite a professionally developed and supported firmware with a good ecosystem, and I hear nothing but nice things from people who use it. Also I think Google encourage this behaviour, which is a bit different from the iOS situation where Apple are playing whack-a-mole with security holes.