This. Aside from the Genesis and its mega success, Sega's hardware was woefully underused. It's a shame, too, because they were at the forefront of experimentation back in the day.
JakobFel
The DS 3D was pretty weak, though. Don't get me wrong, great games like The Force Unleashed and Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles are amazing games but the 3D in both was almost worse than PS1/Saturn 3D. Loved my NDS but I get why games tended to go for 2D.
As for my opinion on the subject matter, the aforementioned Sega Saturn is my pick. The potential that console had could have delivered truly incredible games and memories but Sega made one too many stupid business decisions.
Yep! When you open the Steam menu, you can access a full-featured desktop mode. It makes the device virtually limitless outside of the software issues you mentioned. And I agree entirely that it's ridiculous to see these companies ignoring Linux the way they do.
Hopefully you enjoy your second try of SteamOS!
Ah, didn't know that it's on Steam. Well, there's that at least. Still not a fan of console exclusivity either way, though.