It's an idea, it's a way of working, it's full of stars. No really, it's about Sass'd Up Consistently Killer Styles. OOCSS, SMACSS and BEM only take you so far. Let's turn it up to 11 and change the world forever!
I'm very curious about your comments on SMACSS and BEM, especially as concerns the cascade. I've been trying to avoid descendant selectors for a while, because I've been bitten enough times by their specificity. I agree that .slider__figure--is-active is ugly, but you won't ever get into specificity battles... What sort of specific problems have you bumped up against with BEM? You mention it messing up the cascade; curious to hear more about that.
I'd also like to hear your thoughts about SMACSS and things like .pod .pod-body.is-active, which (while it might create specificity hell) looks quite pleasant to me.