> I can't think of any other similar missteps in recent years.

I stopped using Ubuntu a while ago due to a large number of individually minor "missteps", so I don't have any equally blatant/memorable (or particularly recent) examples, but there were enough of them to be a constant hazard of updating anything.

(For similarly large, there's systemd and wayland, but neither those are specific to Ubuntu.)

Also, someone (for analogy) dumping toxic waste into a drinking water supply, and then listening to feedback and ceasing to dump toxic waste into the water supply, still seems like a damn good reason to say "fuck those guys in particular" to me, and that's what shipping malware in a software update amounts to.