This is surprising for me, too. OTOH I'm using it right now. Maybe it's up there because it just works without much hassle? By that I mean not having to go into

This is surprising for me, too. OTOH I'm using it right now. Maybe it's up there because it just works without much hassle? By that I mean not having to go into any configs, and editing them by hand? They have graphical config tools which did anything I needed to, click, click, clickety click. Chic! Furthermore they support the usecase of installing it to livemedia like USB-sticks, external HDD/SSD via USB, or even booting into RAM, and running from there. Even on older systems, rock stable. All in all very impressive. Like their cousin AntiX, too. No wonder, they are using the same toolsets running atop Debian. Very pragmatic mindset towards daily driver on whatever(common) hardware under whichever circumstances. Maybe that motivated users to rank it up there? (I didn't, btw.)