First point, i readily agree. I could not be bothered to search for any longer back then, but there most likely was a better alternative than going with the official driver suite.

Second point though - if the OS doesn't come with drivers that allow for a plug and play experience out of the box (like my Linux install, think it was Manjaro back then, did), I think that can be held against it. Shitty vendors harm the Linux experience all the time, and it is very often - legitimately as it can severely impact the user exerience - held against it.