Back in 2005, there were numerous distros with great UX. SUSE was great, Mandrake was pretty good etc. Ubuntu was the new kid on the block, but was already showing great promise. Wine worked for a lot of stuff, and there was Cedega for games.
I agree that things have improved since then... but with hardware, for example, it's very much a moving target. Your chances of running Linux on a random new PC bought off the shelf, or assembled from off the shelf components, and having all the hardware fully supported without mucking around with firmware, kernels, configs etc, are still low enough that hardware shopping needs to be done specifically with Linux hardware compatibility in mind, checking lists for what works on what distros etc. And I'm not talking about exotic stuff here, but basic things like WiFi.
I agree that things have improved since then... but with hardware, for example, it's very much a moving target. Your chances of running Linux on a random new PC bought off the shelf, or assembled from off the shelf components, and having all the hardware fully supported without mucking around with firmware, kernels, configs etc, are still low enough that hardware shopping needs to be done specifically with Linux hardware compatibility in mind, checking lists for what works on what distros etc. And I'm not talking about exotic stuff here, but basic things like WiFi.