My experience with Linux since 1995, kind of proves otherwise, I lost track on hand holding Linux on laptops, including those sold with Linux pre-installed.
Yes, but this doesn't prove that Linux desktop is only usable as WSL any more than my experience proves that windows is only usable as wine. You didn't enjoy the experience - that's ok.
I've got zero problems on a T490. All I did was grab the nixos-hardware module for it and off I went.
Maybe don't buy hardware that other people haven't tested first? Some vendors pre-install or announce Linux support but don't actually have anywhere near proper support.
Yes, IIRC that was some of the models shipping with a non-Intel network card, not all were affected. Same with the Framework and its power states not working.
Unfortunately Linux "support" means little, you have to go by other people's experiences with the specific laptop or at least the specific hardware pieces used by it. But if you check before you buy, which is a pretty trivial affair for anyone tech-savvy enough to manage their own Linux install, or if you're careless and lucky, things go swimmingly.
