I maintain that the Linux desktop in 2021 was actually less usable than it was in 2016. But things have really turned around since then.
A good replacement of X11 would have had a well designed local mode that abstracted modern hardware in all configurations and an actually good network protocol.
We're left with a barely-working local mode with awful X11 stuck on top.
And we've moved to it for purely political reasons.
Like okay yeah we could all just stick to X. But in order to do that we need X to be developed, which it's not.
I don't think we disagree on facts at all.
I, for one, like Wayland's design. The problem was that it was incomplete and the implementations were buggy. Well, now the protocol is feature-complete and the implementations are solid.