The problem I ran into with Git was simple: I could not figure out how to build it from source or install it without administrator privileges. After about an hour of screwing around, I just gave up and sshed into a Linux box instead (both were for school).
Updating Java was an issue back when I was doing Java development. I simply couldn't get the version of Java I needed, period. I don't see how it can be a bad example when that's exactly what happened. I think Apple has since given up on packaging Java themselves, which probably ameliorated the issue.
As far as fonts go, I have no doubt OS X has decent font support. My point was that Linux also has great font support these days.
These aren't random problems I heard about: these are actual problems I've personally experienced. I definitely had a higher density of problems per unit time spent on OS X than on Linux or Windows, which says quite a bit.
Updating Java on OSX is trivial (download & run), no idea what problem you ran into with git, OSX has full-screen apps and multiple desktops, and OSX has always had the nicest font support and type rendering of any OS -- Apple has always been at the forefront of that.