OOM killers serve a purpose but - for a desktop OS - they're missing the point.

In a sane world the user would decide which application to shut down, not the OS; the user would click the appropriate application's close gadget, and the user interface would remain responsive enough for that to happen in a matter of seconds rather than minutes.

I understand the many reasons why that's not possible, but it's a huge failing of Linux as a desktop OS, and OOM killers are picking around the edges of the problem, not addressing it head-on.

(Which isn't to say, of course, that OOM killers aren't the right approach in a server context.)