I remember a lot of positive reception because a lot of stuff worked out of the box, but that was at the cost of stability, because they made things work like s

I remember a lot of positive reception because a lot of stuff worked out of the box, but that was at the cost of stability, because they made things work like shipping unstable versions of pulseaudio. So I had the impression it was a mixed bag, then got a better reputation as the software continued to improve, then continued to go downhill pretty much ever since Unity.