it got a lot better. on my archlinux install (on a macbook), the only thing that did not work out of the box was wifi (i had to install proprietary broadcom drivers).
other than that, everything is fine and dandy. and it boots a lot faster than osx ever did.
Yup, indeed, running Arch on a 2013 MBA here. It's been a pleasure so far. Installing the broadcom driver was a breeze, and never had any issues.
You don't have to use it.
Downvoted for some reason, but there's Wayland and Mir.