I think you're missing the point here...This would be the average person-on-the-street's reaction to using any sort of Linux distribution.
Sure, the reaction looks stupid. But you can't expect everyone in the world to become sysadmins or Linux experts, so if you want Linux to be used outside the admin and hobbyist communities, Linux distros need to work out-of-the-box..
The simple reason the Big 3 are in trouble now is that banks are a lot more hesitant to lend money, both to dealers (for inventory) and to consumers (To buy cars).
The other problems Detroit faces are real (i.e. quality control, building SUVs), but those are more long-term (i.e. not crisis-level) problems...
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect "Hungry." -- a Larson cartoon