So maybe we'd need some kind of poll to know what all of us collectively need. And I'm sure those who make Gnome (many at RedHat I think) have an idea. So maybe there is some interest, or unfortunate planets alignment that makes "simple" users to be second class citizen. That is, Wayland, VR, tearing are not things that prevent one of completing a professional task so they just don't get fixed...
My point was that I see many area of improvements but none of them prevents me of being happy (I use my Linux DE 80% professional and 20% leisure; or 5% movies and 95% browser/coding). It seems that some of these areas are not on the improvement level for you but on the indispensable one. So as you said, there's some personal appreciation going on. So for me the equation is more like FLOSS quality + licenses >= proprietary quality + license. That is, I value the license difference more than the quality difference; hence I'm pretty happy with many sub standard tools :-)
So now, in your list, the tearing is clearly, for me, the most painful issue at the moment. Watching movies is a bit painful at times.
So in the end, well, ain't sure anything gonna change soon. But the sooner the better, I agree on that :-)