Your view of "You want something that always works? That only happens in a closed system." In relation to peripherals is flawed. There are already wide reaching driver support in open systems such as mainline Linux. You don't need to install (in some cases) any drivers to use the most popular items such as printers, mice, keyboard ect.

"That only happens in a closed system" is only (sometimes) the case when that "closed system" decides what it thinks the user wants is the only way.