You replied suggesting a specific window manager (a single component within a desktop environment) to a post lamenting the rough edges in popular modern DEs. You made no indication that your recommended replacement offers no way to hot plug a monitor, connect to the internet, or even launch an arbitrary application without installing and potentially configuring additional packages. These are very basic features folks have come to expect in a DE.
Making this sort of recommendation is throwing the user headfirst into a painful situation likely to give them an extremely negative impression of i3.
Not explicitly, but I never said configuring or using i3 was simple. It is a very valid point, but is does not refute the fact that i3 is itself simple.
> You made no indication that your recommended replacement offers no way to hot plug a monitor, connect to the internet, or even launch an arbitrary application
I should have written more originally yes, but I have since given my recommendations for these. So why bring it up again?
> Making this sort of recommendation is throwing the user headfirst into a painful situation likely to give them an extremely negative impression of i3.
This is Hackernews and I was replying to knowledgeable posters. I think it is safe to assume they will look into it first without getting into a "painful situation".
Although you do raise some good points, I feel it is your posts that have given an overly negative impression of i3.
Your examples above are mostly common configuration issues, easy to find with Google. Even a Windows user would likely need to Google many things (e.g. disabling forced updates, privacy settings, registry hacks).
I'm also skeptical that Gnome or KDE will make it significantly easier to solve such configuration issues. Do they even allow settings to be easily moved to another machine? Unfortunately Linux in general will always need some tweaking to work with specific hardware.