The same reputation extends to Windows too so I don’t think it’s a Linux specific issue.
I like the UX as it’s pretty powerful but I’m mindful of being ancient and having spent nearly a decade working with arcane telco applications. I have the opposite of your complaint - I like that it does periodic checks and will notify you of detected problems and usually give you a button to press to solve it.
My biggest pain usually comes in load order management. Usually this is because this is mentioned nowhere but in a note at the bottom of the mod description that might say something like “near the top” or “after mod x”. I don’t know how Steam just handles this mostly but I have a feeling it might be strong categorisation of mods.
Unless you hear him pronouncing it with a hard G, I don’t know how you can hear college. It ends with a hard sound (voiced plosvie).
To me it actually sounds like co-ed because there’s definitely a c/k at the start and d at the end, and a blustering moron’s mouth noises in the middle, but I don’t see how they get from that to college and I do see how you get from that to coloured. Why he wouldn’t own “co-ed” I don’t know because sounding like a behind the times old white dude is very much their brand