>Is there any combination of these various X11, Wayland, Gnome etc. things that "just work"
that's pretty much what the latest Ubuntu LTS or Fedora release is. And I think most people are using it, but they're just silent about it. I think the linux community just has some uniquely vocal folks on the other end.
I think a large portion if not the majority of the Linux community is just one that prefers choice and customizability over being given whatever that "just works", but not exactly to one's preference. Loss of choice is a loss. For example, there may be users that use WMs like Blackbox, StumpWM, or Xmonad that they've heavily customized throughout many years, and now they're essentially being told that their setups will eventually be incompatible with the changing ecosystem. i3 users got lucky for getting a port (sway), but there are lots of other WMs, and lots of other related tools useful for customization like xdotool, perhaps not all portable to Wayland.
> For example, there may be users that use WMs like Blackbox, StumpWM, or Xmonad that they've heavily customized throughout many years, and now they're essentially being told that their setups will eventually be incompatible with the changing ecosystem.
Yes. You got a wonderful set of tools as a result of all the work and time folks put into X.
The problem is that the folks doing most of the lifting in this space right now, the ones still giving their free time and effort, have decided that they'd rather be developing Wayland (it's not all of them, X is still kicking, but it's a lot of them).
You, as a user of the free software produced by real people putting in time and effort, absolutely don't get to bitch about "Loss of choice is a loss" when what you're really saying is "I'd like to force the people working on wayland to continue working on X, because it's beneficial to me".
that's pretty much what the latest Ubuntu LTS or Fedora release is. And I think most people are using it, but they're just silent about it. I think the linux community just has some uniquely vocal folks on the other end.