The desktop is quite crusty on R-Pi too. It's fine for embedded/server use though, and I do not have complaints about those scenarios. It will be interesting to see how Windows 10 performs on R-Pi 2. :)
Umm ... R-Pi 2 is still ARM, right? So, wouldn't the answer be, "not at all, because MS is bailing out of ARM"? They discontinued the ARM-based Surface recently.
I verified that and it is properly using the official Intel graphics driver.
Weird. Have you checked what glxinfo says? I think it's possible for OpenGL to be software rendering even if the driver isn't VESA in certain broken setups. Another good step would be to try Knoppix on it, to see if it's a distro-specific issue or not. I used Knoppix recently on some random computers with Intel drivers and desktop effects worked fine.
XFCE hasn't seen a new release in almost 3 years, the compositor tears (because it is based on XRender), and it does not have any desktop effects. Windows on the same hardware runs cool zoom animations and translucency without a hitch. Other than that, XFCE seems relatively glitch-free, so I agree that it's one of the best choices.
No, they haven't had a major release recently, but XFCE is definitely still maintained. It's possible to get Compiz to work with XFCE, but, like sibling poster suggests, I would just not use desktop effects if they're not working. I'm sure I could get them working if I really tried, but I'm not using desktop effects on any of my machines. They're a novelty item that wears off quickly.
Now you are just cheerleading. :) You can't realistically say that your experience is "pretty bug-free" if X (in practice: whole desktop) crashes roughly weekly.
One machine out of six, man :) And I was using a beta distro, and I think it might be fixed now. I actually think it's one screensaver that causes or caused it, but I don't know which one because xscreensaver uses a random one each time it starts. It could also be a hardware issue with the machine, though I doubt it.