Found your thoughts quite interesting as I also went totally Linux about 18 months ago, first because Microsoft stopped supporting my great old
Dell 2400 desktop with Windows XP, and then, later, I was constantly feeling harangued with a new laptop I had bought with Win 8.1 installed. I still get emails about upgrading to the 'free' Windows 10 system.
I also installed Linux on a now 13 year old
Acer laptop.
I earlier tried many distros and all of them had some plusses and minuses, as usual.
I decided on
Linux Mint 17 Qiana for mythen 'new' HP laptop, and it is still great! I haven't felt a need to upgrade and it is loaded to the gills with many applications we non-power users require and want.
My laptop has
Linux Lite 2.4 installed and it is smaller, faster and equally loaded with all the applications I need and desire. The
Linux Lite variant is the best alternative to install for older machines, IMHO.
When I was fiddling with
Ubuntu, I got the feeling that the Ubuntu people are beginning to play the same game as those being played at Apple and Microsoft. It seems to me that they eventually want to totally lock users into their echo-system.
All in all, I am happy with my decision to go all Linux all the time, but I do wish that I hadn't wiped my hard drive clean off my Windows XP box. It was the best system ever and I never had a security problem, no blue screen, no lockups, nothing.
Ahh, c'est le vie.