> someone savvy enough to discover an obscure distro might not need everything to be a user friendly macOS-esque experience

Some of these savvy people discover these OS's and think they might be a perfect fit for their non-savvy relatives.

However once you (need to) go just a little step beyond the bounds of what the OS creator set for you everything simple comes crumbling down again and you are stuck with the complicated mess that is the Linux Desktop where freedom and customization is both its greatest feature and its greatest weakness.