With all respect, I have a similar history to yours (here if you're curious) and what I've learned about the differences between a Mac and either Windows or Linux is that with a Mac, the more you know about the inner workings of computers, the harder it is to get your mind wrapped around how the Mac does things.
I have to constantly tell myself: "Stop thinking about what's going on in the computer. Just clear your mind and think about what you want to do. The Mac expects you to just do that, not think of how you'd do it with a handful of chips and a compiler."
That's why, in my opinion, Macs are generally better for non-geek types. But as you say, for us geek types, we have to stop thinking like we understand how it works, and just think of what we want to do.
Of course, YMMV, but that's been my experience, personally and with other technical and non-tech types.
I have rsync and find and chmod and gcc and make and whatever editor I feel like, automount NFS and SMB network drives, authenticate with NIS or LDAP, run Apache 2.4 as a webserver...
UNIX is the best there is, IMO. Not that the UNIX is justification for buying a Mac -- there are cheaper ways to get a commandline. Just sayin' :-)