No, it has to do with how your system is set up. Without fail, someone who has his opinion about Linux is using some ungodly bloated corpse of a distro because they genuinely do not know better. Hence why they blame their system's problems on the kernel, despite ostensibly never having any actual problems with the kernel itself. It's not like Linux is particularly perfect, but how many complaints about using it as the basis of a desktop system include the mistake that is the devtree? Or the fact that nice values are complete placebo? Or the million quirks with it's specific implementation of SIGALRM?

You don't have problems with Arch presumably because you've avoided building your system into a neutron star of corporate shitware, while that's the default state for most distributions.

You forgot the part where they edited a bunch of config files (that they didn't understand) for no reason or are running some experimental UI extension that makes their mouse pointer have a trail of stars or something.

All of these points apply to every OS. Windows bricking itself after updates is far more likely to be caused by all the bullshit software installed by manufacturers and the user.

> Hence why they blame their system's problems on the kernel

I'm not blaming anything on the kernel (other than memory management). The userland ecosystem is part of what makes an OS, a perfect kernel with no userland is of no value to the general populace. You don't really get to discount everyone's complaints about the Linux experience because they aren't complaints about the kernel, or at least you won't convince anyone by doing so. It is clearly possible to solve many of the issues I have on top of the Linux kernel, because Android used to be decent, but it seems the desktop ecosystem is just locked in to too many bad choices at this point.

The vast majority of complaints about Windows have nothing to do with the NT kernel, either, which by most accounts is actually quite good.

I mean, I literally opened my post talking about how it's the structure of your system, as in the components you choose to make up your desktop. The kernel is ultimately irrelevant, that's the point, I'm not sure how you managed to miss that. Linux does not have a canonical userland beyond the GNU Coreutils*, no matter how much Redhat and its sycophants would like it to be the case. Windows does, however. When you're complaining about Linux, you're complaining about your specific choices in how you structured the system, usually boiling down to your choice of distribution (but not essentially.) You can certainly at any point pack up your bags and leave the dogshit behind, your pain is a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Such is not the case on Windows, where you are proffered absolutely no choice, because there is a canonical desktop experience. Nobody made you use Gnome or other such crap. But there are certainly plenty of people who will lie to you and try to get you to stay within Redhat's kingdom of sewage.