linux, i am sure is great for those who have the time to spend tinkering.
With distributions of Linux mutating and becoming more sophisticated all the time, it's now a matter of learning which one fits your needs. You won't need to reinvent the wheel unless you go with an obscure distribution.
Or, for about $1000 you can go with a new mini-Mac. Whatever you like. But, you're right - change requires effort.
Distrowatch.com tracks 100 distributions in its hit page ranking.
1 Ubuntu
2 Mandriva
3 Fedora
4 MEPIS
5 SUSE
6 Debian
7 KNOPPIX
8 Gentoo
9 Slackware
10 Damn Small
11 Xandros
12 FreeBSD
13 PCLinuxOS
14 CentOS
15 SLAX
16 Libranet
17 KANOTIX
18 Kubuntu
19 Vector
20 Arch
21 Linspire
22 Red Hat
23 Yoper
24 Vidalinux
25 Puppy
26 PC-BSD
27 Minislack
28 aLinux
29 Gnoppix
30 Ark
31 Feather
32 Solaris
33 IPCop
34 White Box
35 Frugalware
36 GeeXboX
37 Devil
38 Kurumin
39 Turbolinux
40 Vine
41 SME Server
42 ClarkConnect
43 OpenBSD
44 LFS
45 Yellow Dog
46 Aurox
47 Scientific
48 Zen
49 Lormalinux
50 CRUX
51 PHLAK
52 Berry
53 Progeny
54 Novell
55 BeatrIX
56 YES
57 BIG LINUX
58 Foresight
59 Knoppix STD
60 FoX Desktop
62 Morphix
63 SAM
64 DragonFly
65 AGNULA
66 m0n0wall
67 LiveCD Router
68 NetBSD
69 Mediainlinux
70 CCux
71 Trustix
72 Lineox
73 Lunar
74 FreeSBIE
75 Astaro
76 tinysofa
77 rpath
78 GoboLinux
79 Conectiva
80 WHAX
81 MoviX
82 BLAG
83 Auditor
84 Mandows
85 Symphony
86 Kate OS
87 SmoothWall
88 dyne:bolic
89 AUSTRUMI
90 redWall
91 Linux+ Live
92 Tao
93 ParallelKnoppix
94 Onebase
95 QiLinux
96 Navyn OS
97 ADIOS
98 Linux4all
99 INSERT
100 Overclockix
wow...
but seriously, mac is probably the os i would go to if it comes down to changing...
but for linux/unix people i do have to say this: the average linux/unix user is far more capable and knowledgeable than the average windows user!