I used FreeBSD for many years (on servers) between 2001-2009. I also used it as a personal machine in the 90's. We used it for stability, at which it did well.The real problem was that everything was moving to Linux. The Linux kernel and community kept up with with bleeding edge hardware or software. Stability of Linux continued to improve and most people stopped compiling custom kernels anyway. I used to compile most user-space software too, and almost never do now. That largely negated the FreeBSD benefits.