I have to agree with you, from an end-user perspective, Ubuntu and Mint are the best. (Mint is a debian/ubuntu derivative). I administer unix and linux systems for a living, and i think Redhat/CentOS are the best enterprise linux distros.
I think Mint is better than ubuntu 10 because they have made it even easier to to get flash playing.
While the linux OSes are getting closer and closer for mom and pop use, its not there yet. But the latest releases are getting closer and closer. If owned my own business, it would be CentOS (free) servers and probably Redhat desktops (free, but support costs).
I think Windows is a fine operating system, and is the most widely supported. Its just not as glossy or reliable as a Mac (because they use BSD for the kernel). Macs just aren’t worth the money to me. I do like the iPhone and the iPad. But i wouldn’t fork out the $$$ out of my own pocket. The boss pays for those, you know, the digital leash.
What do you think about PCLINUXOS? It is the codec issue that i find troublesome. As for Windows, it actually can be made more user friendly than it is. For instance, I use AutoHotKey which enables me to write scripts to launch individual or multiple applications at once, or access Windows components. Window key and F1 launches my 2 main Bible programs, and Thunderbird, OpenOffice. and Firefox. I could put them in the Start up folder but this is better. Windows key and U launches the Uninstall programs (appwiz.cpl) while many more such can be done with the Run command (who knows about running dxdiag ?)
What Linux needs is a better Control Center.