Some many reasons have built up over the years for the educated user to not use Ubuntu:
-- The pulse audio fiasco
-- The network manager that couldn't manage anything but vanilla networks (I hear that's changed now, but I'm not about to sacrifice any more nights of my life to Ubuntu for finding out)
-- Massive and arbitrary changes to the windowing buttons without so much as a nod to keeping the actual community involved
-- Brown, then purple
-- Core application that deletes your whole drive if you don't supply parameters. Now that's pretty bad...but the clincher is that when questioned about it, the senior Ubuntu developer gave us a most excellent entry to add to the encyclopedia of bad ideas
-- And now, no system tray, "we don't like it so we throw it out" haha
I have a feeling the revolution will not be Ubuntu-ized.
ubuntus network manager has been first class for ~2 years, I have less problems on ubuntu that I do with my mac in regards to broadband dongles, its audio has also been long fixed
the aesthetic changes (purple to brown) are a large improvement that everyone asked for, the window buttons really dont matter that much (and they can be moved back)
the core application was very much a niche issue for those messing around inside a bootloader, its not like opening notepad ran rm -rf /
and as for the system tray, im not particularly fussed either way, but I am glad that someone is worrying and doing something about ui issues instead of sticking to the status quo
The most annoying feature of GNOME Ubuntu for me, after the look&feel, is the managers.
I use a LAN; I don't want a network manager.
I use a desktop; I don't want a power manager.
I have speakers; I don't want a sound manager.
If there's a way to hide them, it's not simple. You can't just uninstall them, because they've taken over the duties of actually managing the resources as well, in addition to just showing me information I don't want.
If by armchair commentary you mean 14 years of using and administering every major Linux distro, including a couple years of mostly Ubuntu, and having something to say about it, then you're right on the button.
-- The pulse audio fiasco
-- The network manager that couldn't manage anything but vanilla networks (I hear that's changed now, but I'm not about to sacrifice any more nights of my life to Ubuntu for finding out)
-- Massive and arbitrary changes to the windowing buttons without so much as a nod to keeping the actual community involved
-- Brown, then purple
-- Core application that deletes your whole drive if you don't supply parameters. Now that's pretty bad...but the clincher is that when questioned about it, the senior Ubuntu developer gave us a most excellent entry to add to the encyclopedia of bad ideas
-- And now, no system tray, "we don't like it so we throw it out" haha
I have a feeling the revolution will not be Ubuntu-ized.