You don't like Unity and you are an advanced user who can change the set-up to match your needs. I think that's good and it means the default DE doesn't even im

You don't like Unity and you are an advanced user who can change the set-up to match your needs. I think that's good and it means the default DE doesn't even impact you. But I don't think you can extrapolate from your personal use-case to what is best for all the users (ie replace Unity). It's like a racing driver saying that a Ford Focus doesn't handle corners the way they like it. Guess what they are probably right - but car is designed for the majority of users and wouldn't as usable for them if you set it up to suit the 1% that are racing car drivers. As an aside, you do realise that Ubuntu has the best "hardware support" because we ship on the most OEM's. It's the shipping millions of units a year that ensures that the supply chain cares about Desktop Linux - Intel, Nvidia, Broadcom etc aren't charities. And, we ship on the most OEM's because we have the largest set of 'general users' - and Unity works for them. ps I work for Canonical but this is my personal opinion.