Remember that Macs are primarily sold to consumers looking for a nice home laptop, students, and certain creative professionals. If Linux is even an option for you, and you're reading and commenting here, that says you are probably not in any of those groups.

I've used Macs since 1984, and I'm on my second MBA, following two MBPs and too many Apple desktops to count. I have also owned many, many Windows PCs. My work is almost entirely on servers running Linux. I am familiar with all three setups.

As a developer Windows is too much of a pain, mainly because it's not Unix, so I can't even come close to duplicating a typical server setup. Windows has steadily improved over the years but I soured on it a long time ago, and even now I wonder how serious developers can use it, unless they are developing for Windows. Typical Windows laptops are terrible quality (I buy one or two every year for my kids), and the nicer Windows laptops are just as expensive as a MacBook, but with worse battery life, and of course they're running Windows. If you think OSX has been polluted with iOS ideas, look at what happened with Windows 8.

I'd love to run Linux on a laptop, and I've done it a few times, but the overall experience always gets frustrating. I can live with tracking down drivers and fixing incompatibilities during an install, but I don't want to keep doing it. Having software at every level -- drivers, OS components, applications -- coming at me from so many uncoordinated sources just creates a level of DLL Hell (shared libraries and drivers) that makes me wistful for Windows 98. Linux is a good server OS, but as a desktop/laptop OS it's an also-ran for a variety of reasons that everyone here already knows.

I travel a lot (digital nomad, I guess) so overall build quality (durability) and battery life are the most important features in a laptop, for me. The MBA and MBP are clearly the best available right now, though I've seen high-end Lenovo and Sony laptops that appear equivalent to my Macbook, but with poorer battery life (I get 9 hours on my 13" MBA), and the same or higher price tag. I don't have time or patience to waste non-billable hours trying to twist the OS and UI into my vision of perfection. I don't even want a desktop background picture. I'm not a teenager trying to personalize everything.

Most Mac users are not going to install a lot of apps, or try to tweak the OS, or make many demands on their system that Apple didn't anticipate. For most Mac users the experience is good out of the box. The more you fuss with it the more likely you will break something, or introduce an incompatibility, or get some crap application or browser extension on it. Developers and hackers (and gamers) are most prone to this, and they will struggle with their computer no matter who made it or what OS it runs. They're like teenagers customizing a car, then complaining that their Toyota Corolla isn't reliable, gets poor gas mileage, and overheats now that they've overriden all of the defaults and tweaked it to suit their personal style.

I'm not saying OSX is perfect for me out of the box, but it's close enough. I don't need to bolt a spoiler on the back, lower the springs, install new rims, and replace the fuel injection chip. I've disabled Launchpad (easy), Dashboard (easy), excessive notifications (easy), iCloud (reasonably easy), transparent windows (easy), accessibility/usability shortcuts and gestures I don't like (easy), and installed some newer versions of Unix apps I use (usually easy, but can go wrong -- try doing it on Windows). I don't like iPhoto taking over when I plug my phone in but I managed to turn that off -- maybe it helps that I use an Android phone.

My MBA is used at least four hours every day and travels in a backpack. It's up for weeks at a time, I usually only have to reboot it for an OS upgrade or patch, or if I run the battery dead. I use Yosemite, it seems OK, no better or worse than previous OSX releases. I don't have problems with wi-fi, audio, overheating, or battery life. Maybe I'm just lucky but that's been my experience with every Apple laptop, and it has not been my experience with any Windows or Linux laptop.

Macs and OSX have real issues, sure, and there's no reason not to discuss them. But if you are experiencing frequent crashes, freezes, bugs, dead battery, etc. it's most likely because of something you've done, or maybe a faulty machine, than a conspiracy at Apple or a decline in their software QA. Just remember that you are by definition not the mass market Apple sells to. That mass market is very happy with Apple's products, as their sales and stock price continue to demonstrate.

Disclaimer: I worked for Apple more than 25 years ago, I have nothing to do with the company anymore except as a user of their products.