Which parts are nicer? What makes them nicer?

Every single bit of the desktop is nicer than stock GNOME. Preferences, the terminal, the dock, window decorations, you name it. It’s just visually polished and _consistent_ to a degree I haven’t found in any other distro yet.

Consistency is the word. Elementary applications stick to the interface guidelines very well.

I agree. It's the tiniest things, like math operations in the search bar, autosaving in the text editor, terminal knowing that I want to copy something when I select the text and press Ctrl + C...

+ NO MENU BARS. I'm allergic to locating things in a drop down within a drop down within a drop down.

Also the preinstalled terminal has case-insensitive tab completion which is nice as well.

I've had some technical problems with past eOS versions but it's one of few distros where you get the feeling the developers are actually trying to make it more usable and polished. It starts with a consistent, nice-looking UI and doesn't stop with details like great default wallpapers.