That's interesting, maybe it's hardware-dependent? I'm doing nixos + KDE + Wayland and I've had almost no issues in day-to-day usage and productivity.

I agree with you that there's a lot of bleeding. Linux is nicer than it used to be and there's less fiddling required to get to a usable base, but still plenty of fiddling as you get into more niche usage, especially when it involves any GPU hardware/software. Yet somehow one can run Elden Ring on Steam via Proton with a few mouse clicks and no issues, which would've been inconceivable to me only a few years ago.