Studio, I'm agog at your hard to maintain comment, can you expand? Ubuntu is easier than pretty much every single OS I've come across in this respect, it checks at a predetermined(customisable) period, tells you there are updates by an icon in the sys tray. Click this and it get the list of whats available, you can de-select any you specifically don't want and it then asks for your password, job done.
Even a geek like me rarely ventures into CLI in Ubuntu, the only time I have done in the last couple of months was when I wanted to configure a bluetooth 3G connection via my phone which is not exactly something a lot of people would want to do(actually you can even do this via GUI but I wanted to do some low level checks and as I'm a Comand line geek both at work and home its sometimes just 'quicker' to do it directly).
The only other tiems I would consider CLI now are if I'm doing something weird across a filesystem where being good at scripting I can make global changes very quickly. e.g. I use a Perl Script to create thumbnails of 3 sizes and generate HTML index sheets for images. Yep I could use a GUI Tool with Batch mode but it would involve numerous clicks, selections, etc, I just run "pix2tn <directory>" and its all done in no time.
What you say about standardisation in already in place(
Linux Standard Base (LSB) - The Linux Foundation), standardisation does not mean just one distribution to rule them all. The fact that Linux can and does run on everything from microwaves to home PCs, Supercomputer clusters to Space stations tells you that its not sensible to have 'one' version.
I know you aren't some Linux hater but I genuinely don't see your comments as anything like what the reality of Linux today provides