Oh dear you seem a little confused. Linux is not just a kernel although all to often I see it refered to as one. The kernel is the kernel. The amiga isnt just Kickstart. It is a culmination of things.
I have found X to be quiet good. It has fair driver support and is very configurable. Far more configurable than windows display driver and certainly tones better than the amiga display. How ever it isn't a GUI. It is meerly a display software. The Desktop Environment such as GNOME or KDE is what looks after the gui and they are quiet adequate. You can choose what Desktop environment you wish to run based on your needs and you a not limited to just the two mentioned before. There is no need to re-write a X replacement because there is majorly wrong with X.
Linux being designed to be cheap is only a half truth. Linus wrote it because he loved UN*X but could not afford a Unix machine. He wrote it with the intention of running it on PC's and the like because the hardware was cheap unlike UNIX hardware at the time.
I can't understand why you would hat Mac or linux because they are both great platforms and increasingly popular on the desktop. Unless you have never read
www.slashdot.org it is not possible to say "..I don't think Linux will be getting much action on the desktop.....". Linux already has. Open Office is a good example of a worth Office suit that is becoming very popular.
