That's a straw man. All features should be weighed against each other. Priorities and engineering choices should consider all potential Linux users, not just the current most vocal-crustiest.
For instance, I personally prefer lower latency and ease of programming over network transparency. Your bottom might be my top ;)
That's fair and I agree with you that features need to be weighed against each other. But I really don't think a feature's presence or absence in another operating system should have much weight in a discussion about Linux. Nor would I assume that because another system made a feature tradeoff it's the right tradeoff, either in general or for Linux specifically.
For instance, I personally prefer lower latency and ease of programming over network transparency. Your bottom might be my top ;)