I don’t doubt you cleaned up it up well. But you are the exception rather than the rule for experiencing Windows 11.
The absolute shitfest that is the incessant integration with Bing and other online only tech is the biggest problem. If you have muscle memory like I do to start button + type keyword for a program + enter, it is unbearably slow to respond at times for the search to catch up. Or my new favorite, getting ready to hit enter, only to have it change the current selection right before.
And this is to say nothing of the critical settings you can no longer directly control or are just broken. Want to change the power profile of your laptop? Buried. Want to get an estimate on your battery time remaining? Better open the registry. Want to switch your background? Well, roll the dice on that high resolution PNG you just created; unlike 10, 11 fails on some backgrounds of certain filetypes if they’re over a certain size (try a detailed PNG over 3000x4000). Just want a plain old Documents directory that isn’t integrated with OneDrive? Happy hunting; turning it off ain’t enough anymore.
How broken are we talking here? Like, installation is kinda borked but technically works broken, or purge it with fire and salt the storage medium broken?
I have often busted my machine learning rig as it runs an ancient (but spacious VRAM) GPU. If I upgrade the drivers by accident, it takes an average of 1-2 days to make everything happy again.
I used to be more cavalier with my boot partitions; I am no stranger to a busy box for repairs. Best moments are when I used to try and adjust a live partition to make more room for the swap partition (or vice versa).
I have screwed up more Raspberry PI installations than I care to count. Usually by my own hand.
I have completely broken Xwindows multiple times due to drivers, trying to go between desktop environments, and most frequently trying to get video cards to work that aren’t natively supported.