Well it's certainly true that things change often under Linux, but most of the time the progress is good so it's worth learning something new. Like I said before, if you have to "fight" to learn it, then I would say you're not really part of Linux's target audience. Most people who enjoy using Linux find that sort of thing generally takes little effort, so it's not really much of a problem. Personally I would rather have things change and improve until they're really good, even if it means I have to learn something new myself. Learning is good.
As a side note, I know it was only an example but I'm not really sure what you mean by the xorg.conf issues. I am still using a custom xorg conf today with the latest version of Xorg. Perhaps the distribution you chose decided to do things differently? You can't really blame Linux for something your chosen distribution did differently to others.
And it goes both ways too. Since Windows 7 I can't find anything in Control Panel any more (where has "Add/remove programs" gone?), my DOS games no longer work, Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer lost half their features when the menu bars were removed, etc. Apparently Windows 8 changes even more. I still can't find half the functionality since it was obscured by the Office "ribbon." You might complain about Linux changing, but believe me, as someone who has to "fight" to learn how to do things in a GUI, Windows changes just as much.