Not really, unless they're doing something special. But if they're doing something special, they're not average users.
In my experience with Linux desktop, this could be "have the touchpad work the same as it did on Windows", "plug in an extra monitor and have it behave somewhat normally", or "play this game". But yeah, I guess that as long as we only expect "average users" to only use a web browser to look at Youtube, it's fine.
I have no idea how touchpads behave on Windows, but in, say, Gnome or KDE, you can adjust it through the GUI. Extra monitors work fine on Gnome. Steam works fine in general, across distros.
Like, I understand that my MRI operator can't just install Linux on their PC. But the majority of people are usually not dependent on Windows-exclusive software, especially in the smartphone era.
I know things have improved a bit after 10, but I used to say that it is easy to see who is using windows because they always brought their mice with their laptops.
Perhaps a far more polished and documented version of Qubes with various btrfs trees selectively presented cleanly to appropriate VM containers. Focus on the user UX meets the dev/ops UX but without gimmicks, not-invented-here, or fragility. All of the various desktop-laptop things need to work without surprises and be easily configurable with a UI. For fleet management, a desktop OS really needs simple, programmatic/declarative/imperative MDM- and/or chef-like configuration agent or hooks.
That's something you can make happen if you're paying people... but it's pretty hard when you aren't.
Why should someone work on something they're not thrilled about? (from their perspective)
But we, consumers, have gotten so accustomed to the jank of Windows that we perceive it as intuitiveness. But is it really so? Just consider: what would Grandma have an easier time using? Elementary OS, or Windows 11? To me, the answer seems obvious. But we don't optimize for Grandma.
You absolutely don't have to. There's no reason for normal users to ever touch the command line, every essential task (installing stuff, updating) can be done through the GUI on most distros. Certainly the main ones like Ubuntu, Fedora and openSuse.
> the software you are used to is not available
This is the main issue. The average user has a meltdown if a single button moves. I still remember the Office ribbon fiasco, Windows 8 fiasco, etc...