Having a Desktop that works 99% of the time, and isn't made by amateur hour volunteers that either let things stagnate for ages (GTK+), or change their ideas every second month (from UI direction to media framework), is not "GUI frippery". Except if you spend all your time buried in the command line to begin with.

The only bad things about OS X are due to the proprietary and closed nature of some of the components (and the older versions used for some unix userland stuff). Implementation and experience wise, the whole desktop is miles ahead of Gnome/KDE.

Even Miguel De Icaza agrees, and he's the one of the handful who bloody started "Desktop Linux".