> Hence why they blame their system's problems on the kernel

I'm not blaming anything on the kernel (other than memory management). The userland ecosystem is part of what makes an OS, a perfect kernel with no userland is of no value to the general populace. You don't really get to discount everyone's complaints about the Linux experience because they aren't complaints about the kernel, or at least you won't convince anyone by doing so. It is clearly possible to solve many of the issues I have on top of the Linux kernel, because Android used to be decent, but it seems the desktop ecosystem is just locked in to too many bad choices at this point.

The vast majority of complaints about Windows have nothing to do with the NT kernel, either, which by most accounts is actually quite good.

You forgot the part where they edited a bunch of config files (that they didn't understand) for no reason or are running some experimental UI extension that makes their mouse pointer have a trail of stars or something.