I have also been annoyed by the way Ubuntu handles the network management, I was setting up an nfs server at home, a task that should've taken no longer than 10 minutes, ended up eating up a few hours, not to mention the fact that I had to reconfigure the network reboot which I blamed on myself but now blame on networkmanager.
I have been using Solaris 11 at work for the past few months, even-though I dislike Oracle, I was surprised by the way they implemented their networking, its a pleasure using it and its the most flexible and configurable networking in all OS's Ive used before.
I will still use Linux at home for personal use, I still envy Enterprises that have the financial ability to get these servers running Solaris 11. I know that It's not open source, and that Oracle is the most evil company, I still love their product (which was developed by sun, and was open-source till oracle stuck their nails in-to it) and I hate myself for loving it.