> But there is nothing more valuable to me than my time. It takes me less time to be productive on Windows and OS X and remove all the junk, than it does to waste countless hours trying to get a Linux DE configured "just right" based on whatever combo I'm using and feature parity I need.

Yeah, I agree.

But the major difference might be that once configured a linux desktop environment is "just right" for quite a lot longer than you think -- and once it is "just right" you get marginal productivity gains in small aspects, which in aggregate, is probably a lot of time saved.

I'm a bit biased because I already sank the cost into my desktop setup in 2011. But frankly: my desktop environment very much gets out of my way.