Sure, I could have reinstalled Arch, but 1) that sort of breaks the whole "install once, update forever" ideal many Arch proponents trot out, and 2) that would

Sure, I could have reinstalled Arch, but 1) that sort of breaks the whole "install once, update forever" ideal many Arch proponents trot out, and 2) that would still require me to install everything manually, set up the base system manually, fiddle around with config files and so on. In comparison, to install Mint, I popped in the USB stick, ran the installer and that was it. The most complicated thing was the partition manager, and only because I have four hard drives and a Windows partition to take into account. And that was it, 20 minutes and I was up and running on a desktop with a browser, with automatic updates, and every driver working correctly. That's what I want from my computer these days. I want it to work for me. I'm not a kernel hacker, I'm not even a developer (aside from some monitoring scripts at work). I want my web browser and my media player and my various little utility apps. I have no desire to be a sysadmin, I've been there and done that, and now I find it a waste of time.