I too have fallen out of love with my Mac for similar reasons. However I think once the ARM based platform is properly integrated it will change a lot of this.
I had one for two weeks and sent it back. The requirement to summon an app before asking your question is clumsy and really takes the "magic" out of the experience. I'm waiting for the Google Home to be available.
Critically lacking in both ecosystems, is the ability to handle multiple user profiles so that it can recognise who is asking the question and tailor the answer to that users schedule, travel etc.
I was involved in a project for the SA Government portal back in ...the late 2000's.... and I remember how much bullshit we had to put up with to get the contract. At the end of a year and a half of developing a highly custom CMS system for them to manage the portal they canned the project (and the few million ZAR of taxpayer money they'd payed us) only to contract in some small black owned company to develop something. I suspect this is linked.
I need to meet this Tumi Ntsele person. She's a friggin' genius.
Yes, it defaults to full retina resolution (2880x1800). Although it doesn't look too bad like that, and Ubuntu let's you modify the UI font size, I'd probably run at a more reasonable 1920x1200.
It also works almost flawlessly out of the box on the Retina MacBook Pro. The only thing that requires adding is the Broadcom b43 modules and possibly the proprietary nVidia drivers.