OK. I've done a fair amount of searching, reading, viewing Youtube videos, playing, installing, re Linux, enough to sort of get my old man's head around the big picture a bit.
First, thanks again Radon for the tips on Linux.
And I was wrong and you were right, Radon, re Linux being a viable, reasonable choice to (at least mostly) replace Windows for most things for users who want to be able to reasonably safely browse the internet, use a MS Office-like set of apps including publish PDF's, etc.
(Unlike many here, when I'm clearly wrong, I just admit it. It doesn't hurt that much.)
My error is that simply, I was living in the past re my Linux experience, and things have changed a LOT over the past decade in terms of reliability, user friendliness, functionality re Windows like things, and making the transition a much easier thing for Windows users willing to make a little effort.
Lesson learned. I think I have so much experience with really BAD software over the past nearly 45 years, that I get too intolerant of bad early experiences.
As I get more confident re my limited experience, I'll share some concepts for those trying to decide about making the leap to something beyond Windows 7 for safe internet browsing for financials, etc. as time goes on, based on my perspective as a "Windows guy" and my "mad scientist" experiments playing with this stuff.
(Hey, it keeps me off the streets, and I'm a geek through and through).
....
A couple observations / big picture conclusions (just my opinions, which many will, no doubt, disagree with):
1). For most, I still think a multi-platform solution might be best or at least very practical, if you do much gaming in Windows. I think I'll end up in Windows 10 where needed, Linux Mint 18.3 (for now) for most of my internet time, and Windows XP for my 16 bit apps/games, strictly offline. One reason is I'm finding different BIG financial services outfits support very different types of Linux.
Two big examples: Vanguard doesn't support Linux at all per their website, which I confirmed with a "customer" phone call, where they verified with tech. support. It's Windows or Apple IOS for them. Not clear what that means if I use Linux and something BAD happens re bad guys breaking in -- but I don't care to find out with a big chunk of my net worth at risk. OTOH, T. Rowe Price supports a handful of popular Linux distros, and a bunch of mobile phone stuff (which terrifies me for serious financial stuff -- at least until that space matures quite a bit).
2). If you want a very popular (hopefully meaning likely to continue to get future support) Linux version that is ALSO quite friendly to people transitioning from Windows, Linux Mint looks like it fills the bill nicely. I was just amazed how much stuff was just THERE (at 18.3, "Sylvia", 64 bit Cinnamon) and worked well, like viewing DVD movies, an office suite as good as MS Office for at least "normal people" document usage, completely normal internet functionality, once Chrome and Chromium were installed (websites vary on what they support), etc. (The even more popular Ubantu (which Mint is a fork (i.e. derived from) is the most popular, but less stuff is installed with it that is windows-like, making the transition more difficult).
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.