I find the negativity pointless, it achieves nothing.
With regards to accepting my reply let me ask you did you take the time to let the MATE devs (Clem at Linux Mint is not a MATE dev) know and make suggestions on how to make it easier to use? In other words did you file a bug report based on usability? If you did do you have the number? I can check it for you and let you know what's being done. If you didn't then I would suggest you do in order to help a small project make itself better and be more usable.
The vast majority of Linux, especially small scale projects like MATE and TDE, is done by volunteers. Posting that things are "awful" does not help Linux at all when nothing is being done to help. If we use emotional responses to things we do not like and not file bug reports then complaining is pointless.
I appreciate your point of view and respect your opinion as an opinion however I cannot accept that the criticism is fair and anything more than an emotional response if you have done nothing to help projects that you are using to make their product better.