Unholy horrors.. really ? .. hmm, well sounds like you have had some bad luck there.. I "had" mostly been a XFCE user for a number of years, not because of the lesser system requirements, but just a preference thing, with Gnome as a dual boot option.. I started using Gnome a bit more, but didn't want Unity so I switched that system to Mint.. have found myself pretty much full time Mint user now with their version of Gnome. Can't say that I have noticed any bugs.. As to driver problems, can't say I have had any problems since about 2002 which is probably the last time I had to figure out a driver problem for my dialup modem. Of course I will caveat that with the fact that I have only run desktop systems (no laptops with wireless cards), and that I have also been a Nvidia video person because they always "had" more Linux support.. I suppose the other difference lately is that I really just don't care enough about having the proprietary video drivers anymore.. strangely though, the desktop effects are working just fine with my latest Mint and I didn't do a thing for the drivers. but I wouldn't have anyway, because the effects are just not that important to me.