[HayBale]

I would say Win clone DE would be horrible for the new users as it would be too similar for the users to fully comprehend that they switch the system and still too different to not incur frustration. Because you can't make 100% copy of Windows without making cheap knockoff of Windows. Linux is in good state right now it does not need another major change.

[jwells89]

Depends on the type of user I think. For totally non-technical, they're never going to be interfacing with any of the under the hood differences anyway… the biggest change for them is going to be using an App Store like package manager UI instead of downloading random exe files.

The group that I'd expect to be most likely to stumble with a clone DE is the group that is just technical enough to get themselves in trouble. This group tends to overestimate their own technical capabilities and quickly frustrates when discovering unexpected differences. For this group, yes I'd agree they'd be better off with a more standard "Linuxy" DE.