I for one do photo post-processing and development on Linux mainly, and have no problems while doing what I want to do.
> ...Linux's particular brand of issues...
Can you please elaborate? I'm interested. Since I'm using Linux heavily and for a very long time, I might be blind to that problems.
I'm reluctant to go into detail about my own personal blockers because every time I do I end up in a multi-page argument with some evangelists who insist that everything I want to do is completely wrong and I should just change my entire workflow to match theirs.
I personally found out that professional class hardware (Dell XPS, HP EliteBook, Lenovo ThinkPad) has the best Linux support out there. I have a EliteBook 850G2 at the office, and except the fingerprint reader (which I don't use), everything is working without any problems. Battery life is also great (~7 hours). However, works for me is not a valid excuse, esp. with hardware.
If you want to discuss further, you can reach me via my profile page.
But there are a lot of reasons that Linux's particular brand of issues are actually still a deal breaker for people, and refusing to acknowledge that will never attract anyone to the platform.