> I absolutely love my laptop running mint, its running better than it ever did with windows, but I could never recommend something even this 'simple' to someone who isn't a hobbyist, or has a lot of spare time to configure and maintain it, or cares about their privacy, etc.

My non-technical relatives run Debian just fine. I don't understand what you are talking about. It has unattendend upgrades and doesn't have to be configured or tinkered with after install.