You say that as if Windows doesn't have the same problems. But it does. I've never had Windows "just work" for a long time. It's either the OEM installed one that's crammed full of bloatware, or you do a fresh install in which case you still have to dick around with:

  1. Running the many cycles of updates and reboots that invariably need to happen on a fresh install. Oh yeah, and one hard reset or power loss when Windows update hangs, as it does regularly, can be enough to irreparably corrupt the installation and force you to reinstall.
  2. Finding the drivers that were missed by Windows update *without* being tricked into downloading malware.
  3. Finding and installing software without being tricked to download malware by SEO spam. And without every application adding itself to startup or installing 3rd party spyware, slowing down boot time.
  4. Finding and changing all the settings whose defaults are making the system slow, insecure, etc. Some of these settings automatically change themselves back after some time btw, unless you use regedit or other hacks.