Since you asked, for what it's worth, I invariably run Debian-based distros. I haven't touched Ubuntu since they decided to get weird with the interface. This laptop is a ThinkPad X61T running Linux Mint + Cinnamon, which is only "okay" - little laggy at times but it works fine. Surprisingly, the fastest-feeling, stablest, easiest-to-use machine I have is... the ancient EeePC. Standard Debian + MATE desktop. The thing about Debian is, if you can put up with somewhat out of date software, is it just does. Not. Break.
I don't really understand where your problems with multiple monitors come from. I just plug 'em in and they work. It's been a while since I had a desktop with an NVidia chip - all my laptops have Intel graphics - but NVidia's self-extracting installers have always worked for me (although they're built against the kernel so you might have to re-run them every upgrade).
I've had the repository problem you describe, long ago - the UK repos were being weird so I switched to France, which worked fine. Nowadays though all you have to do is use http://httpredir.debian.org/, which will always serve you the file from the fastest place it's available from. Never had an issue with it.
I guess I won't deny that it can sometimes be a hassle getting things working just right on a fresh Linux system. But at least you only have to do it once.
EDIT And I don't get how a Linux distro can take more work than Windows to get into a useful state. With Linux I just apt-get the software I want and start work. With Windows installing even a minimal python/R/unix tools/compiler/ssh client/office package/tex distribution/browser/video viewer set of software etc takes ages, lots of baby-sitting and frankly nerves as one navigates around the malware.
I must have some pretty reduced needs. I just use one xrandr command to tell all my monitors what position to be in and it works - and I think my wife uses the GUI program in Ubuntu's Unity desktop without any pain.
> Ubuntu actually had a broken apt-get for me on some recent installs, it turned out to be an issue with using the us subdomain repos
Did you submit a bug report about this? Seems like a bad bug for a distro like Ubuntu.
> Spotify
Spotify is not supported for OpenSuse (it's beta at best on Ubuntu -- but runs very nicely). Trying to run propriety software on unsupported platforms seems like a very bad idea. And of course installing a bunch of random things in random places will spanner an OS. Btw if you want to run Spotify on unsupported platforms I think that there is an addon for Clementine that works nicely and the addon gets installed in your home dir so won't break things (haven't used it for years because the Spotify client works fine for me so things may have changed).
EDIT
I was wrong Ubuntu doesn't install Nvidia drivers for you. You need to install them after install and the process looks annoying.
Counterpoint: I also value my freedom, privacy, mental health, and the longevity of my hardware.
Freedom: I can install it whenever I want on whatever I want. I groan whenever I have to deal with "activation" headaches. It also works just the same on ARM - and anything else! All the programs I use are open source so they come right along too.
Privacy: Even setting aside the Windows 10 debacle, Windows is incredibly noisy on the wire. Linux doesn't make a peep unless I ask it to.
Mental health: System updates happen when I say. It doesn't strong-arm me into restarting when I'm busy doing something else, or hold my system hostage while it does god-knows-what on boot. As for application updates, I have a package manager, so I'm not bugged by a dozen different things like flash updater, java updater, etc. In fact, stuff doesn't spontaneously "happen" in general. If a system service starts chewing up resources or otherwise behaving badly (a rare occurrence) I can a) notice, because it's not lost in the noise of normal system chatter and b) actually find out what it is instead of it being hidden behind "svchost.exe". The primary interface (command line) is comparatively stable - I don't have to keep relearning where things are (it's not perfect in this respect, but it's better than Windows).
Longevity of hardware: I'm writing this on my 2007 EeePC 901. It has 1 gig of ram and runs Debian flawlessly. I never need to restart it and my load average is somewhere around 0.2. Can any Windows do that?
Look, I don't mean to come across as belligerent. You're entitled to choose whatever system makes you comfortable and allows you get work done. But I find Windows wastes far more of my time than Linux.