Yeah all Linux offers us is more libraries and more APIs. Where are the applications? Why are there so many cli tools with no GUI interface. Desktop Linux is so far behind. I used Linux for about a year primarily and when I finally got frustrated enough I switched to windows 8 and realized that the Linux desktop experience is garbage in comparison.
KDE 1-3 and Gnome 2 were great. But then something went horrible wrong in their UX- and UI-designer-mindset. Similar to Windows 95-Vista/7 had a really nice UX and UI, but the Metro/Modern-UI (WinPhone7+ and Win8+) is just tasteless, awful and with crazy color choices.
If anything things are churning a little too much, and this is before the Wayland/Mir transitions have started to kick off yet.