These days XDG spec and most apps put things in ~/.config/, either as a single file or in their own subdirectory. It's easy to navigate and search, and apps can use whatever config format they want.

I'd argue that's preferable to a complicated hierarchy of obscurely named keys.

Might not look better, but I can copy all my settings from computer to computer, unlike the registry.

Also, the registry is used for a lot of stuff besides configs. So my experience on Windows is that you have to run the installers (=slow), rather than simply copying all the files to clone a system.

Plus, it tends to fragment all across the disk, or something like that, and your Windows system inevitably slows down over time. Maybe SSDs eliminate that problem; I (fortunately) haven't had to use Windows in quite a few years.

It's straightforward to copy the per-user software settings from one registry to another.

You can't copy full software installs like that, but it's not the fault of the registry. Installing typical software means affecting dozens of system settings all in different places. You can't easily copy linux software along with every setting it affects either. You're best off either reinstalling or copying the entire drive, both of which work on Windows.

Text files are for the most part readable. The registry can be ugly to work with, if you have to. (which seems to be less and less these days)