Well, I'm not convinced that it's mainly the environment. You noted yourself that he also talks about lower stuff like suspend not working. And suspend/hibernate not working is not the fault of Gnome. It's because of Linux itself. If he on the one hand redefines the Operating System as being the whole experience, he should not forget that the technical base defines the user experience even more than the GUI (The GUI s only important if the base is working). I doubt that with his vision of what an OS is, with his what i see as negleting the technical base, this would be better. I don't think that Gnome itself "has the talent to do almost anything". They won't improve the kernel that much when a base-function don't work, or fix graphic-drivers when their compositor won't work cause of a glitch in them. The DE is a part of the use of an OS, an important part of the daily work, but not the whole OS.

PS: Using Linux for years, I never had a system with working suspend/hibernate. And I still have not, using the newest Ubuntu on my laptop. Which really is disturbing when reading about a GUI almost forcing you to use that broken function.