I also need an OS that just work and that gets out of my way. I have used ubuntu until the beginning of this year without fiddling into the system. This is the first year that I have to fiddle because I can not cope with unity. I have tried linux mint with cinnamon, ubuntu with cinnamon. It works but it is not very polished, it looks very old. This week, I have just installed ubuntu-gnome (gnome 3.8) for the computer of my old father. I has required some effort to learn how to configure it. At first, it looks fine. I just hope I will not encounter any problem.