But that attitude means that “the year of the Linux desktop” will never actually arrive because the vast majority don’t want less polished, hard to choose, undocumented testing.

Sure. I don't want the year of the Linux desktop. Why would I care, really? I want Linux to be the Linux I like.

I sometimes feel that people try to explain to Linux people how they should modify their distro in order to make it look more like Windows, such that they would get more newcomers who like Windows. I don't want that! People who like Windows should use Windows, and we should make Linux look like a system I left for Linux!