I’ve also tend to feel like an external observer.

Completely true, i can’t use it without evil mode (vim keybinds)

Emacs. I’ve created a niceish workflow with it. I really like how it’s so easy to change anything. There are also loads of incredibly useful plugins, so that’s cool.

I find that it’s easier to fix things (though that’s through the terminal, so it’s subjective). I’d say that maybe the best they could get out of linux (appart from the philosophical aspect or the security) would be more alternatives in software (if they care to have them) and better support for older hardware. Maybe even remove some of the problems that windows usually has like the preinstalled apps and slow updates, though that really depends on if the person finds these things annoying or not. (Also, it can be free, so that’s nice)

It’s not exactly what you are looking for, but you could check emacs-ng. It tries to replace some of emacs’ internals with rust and expand the possible scripting lenguajes that can be used with it.