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stable hw/driver api (this is a huge mistake in linux, agreed)Not to get into a flamewar over this, but there are real benefits to Linux's rolling driver ABI (the "API", however, is mostly stable, contrary to what you say). It encourages mainline collaboration, and greatly improves the quality and compactness of the drivers.
On Windows (and to some extent macOS), you'll find whole classes of driver where each driver has its own proprietary internal implementation of something that should have been in the API and ABI, but is not (or just was not when the driver was written). Linux has great, up to date drivers for the vast majority of devices you'd want to use†, and all of the best ones are built (compactly!) right in to the kernel, so it is more or less moot at this point whether a stable ABI is a good thing (at worst, it didn't matter in the long run; at best, it made the system better).
The level of integration and standardization in the Linux kernel is spectacular, and absolutely would not have been achieved if vendors were empowered to link ABI-compatible binary blobs into end user kernels. There is tremendous value in the fact that I can manage, consistently, every LED, every DVFS controller, every fan controller, every GPIO pin, etc. on each supported system in a consistent fashion. Left to their own devices, each vendor would use their pet interface (as seen with NVIDIA putting their foot down and demanding EGL surfaces be used with their driver on Wayland, despite the fact that no standard software supports it); NVIDIA insists that this is the way it's meant to be played, and I'm glad that the answer is a resounding no.
† Outside of the Android ecosystem, which, through what could maybe be called poor stewardship on the part of Google, inexplicably refuses to develop against the mainline kernel, so is constantly fighting to maintain literally thousands of vendor-, OEM-, model-, SKU-, country-, and carrier-specific kernel trees for absolutely no recognizable benefit, and against the clearest and most consistent advice of the highest experts on the subject.