Add to it that every Linux distribution has its idiosincratic approach to low-level subsystems, and you have a recipe for problems if you work anywhere higher up the stack.
But don't worry, eventually the problem will be solved the other way around: there will be a systemd-DE, and everyone will use that. /s
Too bad the 3 are OS problems, and the DE has no way to fix them.
If you don't want to do that, then you need to realize that the DE is THE point of contact between the user and those problems. As such, fixing those problems starts there.
Now, the DE developers may need to relentlessly pound Linus until he finally allows them to do something sane to fix things. And they may have to get chipset spec sheets and correct things deep in the kernel. And ...
RedHat, for all their faults, DOES THIS. And they catch a lot of flack for it.
> What gives?
Simple question to answer: why do so many devs work on OS X machines?
People value "it works without me thinking about it" over "it has features".
However, the people who value "features" are really loud.
The only thing most people use computers for is sharing pictures and videos. And what are the things that Linux sucks at making work out of the box: wireless, audio and video.
KDE could win the battle simply by making those work--every single time.
OS X does it. And look at how many developers use it.