You can't say there's less buggy programs because it's hard to break through. You can say there's less buggy programs because there's less programs in general, which is a much more rational assumption considering you assumed that there's the same ratio for competent to incompetent developers thus making about the same ratio of buggy to polished programs.
However I don't see how Apple's Kernel really is "locked down", I interpret that as a forced cull of functionality for safety or in terms of things like DRM. The only thing I'd consider is the lockdown of the hardware because of forced lack of choice.