Are you for real? In what universe is "mkdir ~/.fonts; mv .ttf ~/fonts" (or "sudo cp .ttf /usr/share/fonts" if you want them system wide) the "longest route"?
So fine, you didn't know this trick. No shame there. But you're willing to click around trying to discover the feature in your GUI (and expect the desktop to hold your hand trying to do it!) yet won't take 30 seconds to google for "install linux fonts". (I just did, by the way: the first two links tell you exactly what I just did).
So sure, the Linux desktop isn't for you. You want more polish and attention than it's willing to provide. Just don't pretend that your inability to learn a few facts about the implementation of your desktop and/or develop an intuition about how things might be done represents "hassle" that takes time away from your important work. Those skills are good to have, and those of us who have them are, quite frankly, better at our jobs than those who don't.
I found out what to do to install the fonts and it cost me precious time unnecessarily (~20 mins total until all issues were resolved - and by the way, Consolas with antialiasing still looks crap because Debian apparently ignores subpixel hinting [guessing]). That is the point.
Your proposed solution does not fix the (totally unnecessary) issue of running applications not seeing the new fonts. This is just broken.
My skills, memory, learning efforts are better spent developing stuff, not finding out what needs to be done in the current Linux FOTM's half-assed GUI to install fonts (KDE installs them on double-click e.g.). There is no "inability to learn" on my behalf involved, just unwillingness to spend time on things that can be and should be simple and straightforward and where the cumbersome Linux solutions are certainly no precious skill to have.
The rudeness and arrogance of you evangelists just drives away more users, by the way.
So fine, you didn't know this trick. No shame there. But you're willing to click around trying to discover the feature in your GUI (and expect the desktop to hold your hand trying to do it!) yet won't take 30 seconds to google for "install linux fonts". (I just did, by the way: the first two links tell you exactly what I just did).
So sure, the Linux desktop isn't for you. You want more polish and attention than it's willing to provide. Just don't pretend that your inability to learn a few facts about the implementation of your desktop and/or develop an intuition about how things might be done represents "hassle" that takes time away from your important work. Those skills are good to have, and those of us who have them are, quite frankly, better at our jobs than those who don't.