For me it was mostly that these distros overwhelmed me and I could not get into their code. I had to "start small" if you want. Also I encountered troubles regu

For me it was mostly that these distros overwhelmed me and I could not get into their code. I had to "start small" if you want. Also I encountered troubles regularly because some things did not feed my needs. I am not saying they are bad, just not for me. And I think they make it somehow harder to discover the true power of emacs: bending it to your will & basically forging your own custom environment, not only for editing but so much more (git, mails, pdfs,...).