I am optimistic that it's possible to do better because: (a) I'm only counting time as "wasted" if I'm forced to fix something the OS broke with no action on my

I am optimistic that it's possible to do better because: (a) I'm only counting time as "wasted" if I'm forced to fix something the OS broke with no action on my part, or if I'm forced to wait for it to do something that I did not ask for. E.g., watching Windows apply updates on boot is wasted. Adjusting keybindings to suit my preferences is not wasted. This isn't a high bar to clear. (b) Design choices, not physical or logical restrictions on what's possible, cause most of this waste. E.g., the choice to have Windows update do substantial work during reboot and to reset user settings (such as HKLM and HKCU keys) is an unforced error. It's demonstrably possible to do better: Linux Mint updates apply in the background, don't lengthen boot time, and leave existing settings unchanged. (c) If the new OS is worse than the current choices, I just don't use it. The time a new OS wastes is in all cases ≤ 2%. Building a new thing that fails hurts a lot, of course, but being a customer is easy.