You're not wrong about the downwards trend in quality but we're still a long ways off from macOS or even Windows having the same level of QA issues that Linux does, on a regular desktop system.
At this point, Linux is very far ahead of windows in terms of QA. And other things, like aesthetics and intuitive UI. I mean, Microsoft has like 5 different application styles across their own built in apps.
I think a lot of people have just not used KDE or even gnome in a while. They're pretty good. Consistent, intuitive, stable.
17 seconds. I timed it.