Nice distro, but..
There's a reason I buy ham at the deli instead of keeping and slaughtering my own pigs. I am by no means a Linux guru, but I've been using Linux off and on for about the last 18 years and at the least can read and understand technical documentation. It's not a lack of skill or being intimidated, mostly laziness I guess. For me, I'm plenty happy with Mint, and it allows plenty of tinkering if I wish, but why reinvent the wheel when you're not going to make it significantly rounder?
I'm not denigrating anyone that wants to roll their own, quite the contrary. But working with technology all day, I feel that for me personally there's not enough hours in the day to willingly be a masochist and do every little thing by hand.