What are the things you consider broken?

The last thing that happened before I gave up (around 2010) was purchasing a laptop with entirely open source drivers (ie, low end hardware I wouldn't have otherwise purchased), and compositing still didn't work on an external monitor.

You'll probably say that's fixed now. I'm sure it is. I'm also sure it's been replaced by something else - I recall someone on HN saying one of Dell Linux laptops (ie, which are actually sold with Ubuntu) still has driver issues.

I switched to OS X for few years and now use a Surface Book mainly for shell reasons.

I reckon the Dell laptop you're referring to is the old XPS 'Developer Edition'. I used one at work and it was ok, didn't have any driver issues from memory, but they no longer sell them to the public with Ubuntu. It was the same as a regular XPS but with Ubuntu 14.04 pre-installed.

I don't believe they offer Ubuntu as an option with the current generation of XPS's, it dropped off the list of supported OS's. It's a shame really because it was nice to have a premium laptop, with Linux, and with on-site manufacturer support.

What I recall was someone on HN saying the 11 inch Ubuntu model wasn't actually that Ubuntu compatible and to buy the 13 inch instead. But I can't remember was the specific HW was.

Compositing as a concept has always been an abusive hack sold by way of excessive eyecandy.

Its basically the DEs way of endrunning the X11 efforts because CADT.