I can see what you mean by Linux desktop systems being less stable than OS X, but I don't recognize what you say about it being difficult to tell whether a change you make is going to cause trouble. Things may crash if you do something weird, but "something weird" generally involves funny commands, not desktop settings.

The trouble with Windows is that there is just so much crap available for it. Everyone is trying to get market share and sell licenses, show ads or co-install crap from other people, who are also trying to get market share, and the cycle continues.

On Linux this could never happen because that kind of software wouldn't make it into the repositories. So while I know what you mean about Linux desktops being less stable than the two most mainstream operating systems, there are a hundred other things that can't go wrong on Linux, making it a lot more "foot-gun safe".