And sometimes make gets used under the covers; for example a Debian Rules file is an executable makefile. There will definitely be a simple mechanism for splicing in subtrees with different build and publication rules, and even different version-control systems, simply because you want to be able to publish open-source projects. (There are a couple of Linux distributions and other projects that do this kind of thing in a build tree, but I've never seen it in a CMS.)

The big CM systems I've seen all have rudimentary version control, but it's not particularly compatible with the VC systems used in software development.

I already handle drafts and selective publication pretty well -- had to put that in early because I keep my entire filkbook in one directory; some of the songs are under construction, and some aren't mine to begin with so I have to keep them off the web. And over in the album area there's this little problem of bandwidth that keeps me from immediately pushing half a gig of .wav files every time something changes... The setup for that kind of thing isn't as automatic as it needs to be.