> Besides that there is a bigger question that I need to answer for myself: given the quirks of FreeBSD, what actually would the benefit of using it be?

I'd say less maintenance, churn and deprecating knowledge. I've used FreeBSD as a desktop for the whole 5.*-branch (good times) and I am sure that I would still find myself home should I install it. Linux... not so much, though some distributions are better. There was that idea of "stable core and bleeding-edge applications" and freebsd did deliver, at least in those time, because ports and OS were not same, unlike in linux package management.

And the elephant in the room, the license

You can read the source without worrying about getting sued for violating the GPL