Linux Mint really impressed me when I decided to try it in a VM earlier this year (was already using fedora in VMs for build environments on a Windows company machine). It installs quickly, runs smoothly, and the updates have been painless.
I like having a terminal open constantly, and learning about technical workings and power user features I may not have known about. However, for non-techie "email and web browsing” use, I would put it in front of my parents no problem. Right out of the box it even looks a bit like windows (cinnamon version, didn’t try others). It even has an “app store” like experience with the software package manager.
If a power user has trouble because they’re used to configuring windows, they can probably learn how to do those settings on a user-friendly Linux distro.
That does not mean it would work for everybody, and that does not mean it won’t break in frustrating ways. It was programmed by humans, after all.
