I don't use WSL because it's linux, I use it just because it's a better prompt/shell environment for Windows.

I have a decent Windows for gaming (and to do the occasional actual Windows app development, but very rarely), so I use that for my work now (web development). The tooling is just better within WSL than natively in Windows.

I'm not sure about the actual overhead of WSL vs a full VM, but I've never experienced any problems with WSL and it's pretty seamless. A full blown VM running in VirtualBox just feels like a lot more overhead.