You obviously have not kept up with Linux development. Linus Torvalds created Linux to work with specifically HIS hardware, no one else's. For 2 years it was like this, Linus didn't give two craps if it worked on newer processors, just so long as it worked on his.
Modern distributions are pretty much the same way, with exception to very few (Ubuntu is an exception, but one of the few (Ubuntu is also not the only "Linux" as many wanna-be geeks seem to think). There are many MANY MANY other distro's out there who's developers don't give two craps what you want, only what they want, Slackware and Arch Linux being two heavily used ones with that philosophy).
Linux was successful because it was free, open source and it didn't have a GUI (thus making it perfect for server adaptations). End of story (there are many others, one prominent being it didn't require a bloody restart every 3 days to remain stable).