I can't dream of installing linux on my mom's desktop. Until I can, linux will never have a consumer OS. Maybe someone should branch with the explicit intent of becoming a consumer linux OS? Windows 8 might sew more seeds of discontent. But that is the other problem. Death by committee. If there were a new distribution of linux with a strong administrative structure behind it, I would probably be very interested in getting acquainted with it. Every grand project needs a benevolent dictator behind it. There needs to be a Linux Republic, Linux Democracies can only go so far. But that is a notion that runs counter to the principles of open source, so...The only way to fix Linux is to take one distro, one set of components as a baseline, abadone everything else and everyone should just contribute to this single Linux. Whether this is Canonical's Ubutu, or Red Hat's Fedora or Debian's system or a new joint effort is something that intelligent people will disagree until the end of the days.
I got an Macbook Pro when they first came out and my sister half-jokingly said she disowned me; now she couldn't survive without her own macbook and iPhone. I'm not sure what you use, but I think Ubuntu would be a decent choice for a linux-based consumer OS. The only reason I wouldn't install it on my parents desktop is because they are so set in their ways. Also, I've been following Haiku which seems like an interesting project with the goal of an easy to use, simple to learn OS. Who knows, maybe 2013 will be the year of linux on the desktop!
I had a thinkpad that came with Vista, and after using XP for a while, I switched it to Ubuntu 10.04. I really like the OS, except for two things: installing software could use a nice GUI, and Gimp. Gimp was the deal-breaker ultimately. I need a solid image editor for my RPG, and Gimp is not a lateral replacement for Photoshop. Switching from Word to Open Office was painless, but not from Photoshop to Gimp. I now have a ideapad running Windows 7, which I like well enough. If I had a second laptop, it would run Ubuntu for sure. My second laptop with Ubuntu recently died. Hubski runs on a Ubuntu server. btw, I can't believe you're still using ugly hubski, /. :)
Have you considered running Photoshop from a virtual machine on Ubuntu? I do that with Powerpoint when I need it at uni. Photoshop Portable runs under wine, be it with a few minor bugs here and there. I left Windows for good 2 years ago, when I was introduced to Ubuntu at uni. Now using Windows just frustrates me to no end. Unless it's Windows XP. Never liked Vista or 7... let's not mention 8. I have no regrets!
Ah yeah, proper replacements for photoshop and flash are the major reasons my wife doesn't switch as well. I have all my computers dual or triple booted with Windows, ubuntu, and haiku at the moment; I love trying out new OSes. And I will use ugly hubski for as long as it's available! I stare at enough Courier New all day anyhow it doesn't really phase me anymore.
I think the switch from Windows to Ubuntu is much easier then then to go from Mac to Ubuntu or Windows to Ubuntu. Mac's annoy the shit out of me, if I used one for a week I'd probably pick em up, but as it is I don't enjoy using em. I don't even think of the difference when I use a decently user friendly Linux distro usually. Plenty of people get laptops from a nonprofit in town that have Ubuntu loaded it's a pretty easy OS for a novice or low budget user. Pick a decent GUI set up and it's almost no different from Windows. Installing software is one of the areas that can be a bit harder on Linux, but I think my Mom could do it. The strength for hardcore users is the the fact that there are so many different distributions of Linux. I would say that is the reason Linux won't die off. More and more of what we do on our computers is going to the web, I think this will demphisise the OS. This should be good for free OS's.