Certainly it is used on the desktop outside of the developer/hobbyist community. See http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=201104200...
By "Desktop" - though, I mean users who are planning on downloading/installing various productivity utilities, applications, etc... to do their job. Creating Reports, Slide Decks, PDFs, Spreadsheets, charts, diagrams, IM apps, Skype - whatever random app they want to use to do their Job.
I've never seen an OpenBSD user in 20+ years of supporting Desktops in Engineering and Corporate environments - Windows obviously, but lots of Macintosh OS, A nice run of NextOS, Lots of FreeBSD, umpteen distros of Linux (for a while, that's all people seemed to be running), many versions of Solaris, tons of Irix, a handful of HPUX users, and even a couple AIX users.
But, in that same time - I've seen OpenBSD squirreled away in all sorts of Appliance/Network/Firewall duties.
I think the average user could be satisfied with what's available on OpenBSD. The only bummer is flash.
``Creating Reports, Slide Decks, PDFs, Spreadsheets, charts, diagrams[...]''
LibreOffice is available on OpenBSD.
``IM apps''
Pidgin and a ton of other clients are available.
``Skype''
It used to work a few releases ago, I don't know if it still does now.
`` - whatever random app they want to use to do their Job.''
Yes, if you compare it to Windows in that regard then it's at a loss. But if you compare it to Liunx I'd say it's up to par.
The problem is that it's getting harder to keep up to date, which is what Marc is trying to explain in his email to tech@.