>Mobile operating systems (and, in my cases Linux in general) are very bad at solving the hard yet common problems -- like seamlessly printing documents or working with arbitrary hardware and software.

You're out of date. Printing is actually easier on Linux than on Windows.

Part of why you can't take a stock version of android and install it on any phone because the hardware discovery on cell phones is entirely lacking. Think back to the days when you had to select the type of sound card and it's address and all that jazz. Now apply that to every single hardware component.