It hasn't been like this for a very long time, but "You need to compile the kernel in order to get it to play sound" is still an incredibly effective attack because it puts advocates on their heels trying to defend it as baseline usable.
When you think about its main competition it's a little silly to keep framing it this way, but again, it's extremely effective so it doesn't really matter if it's right.
Kernels too sometimes stop working. Am currently testing latest stable (caveat with some patches). Nothing major has changed as far as I can tell from my sources but the newest release (6.9.9) now has an unexplainable panic on boot.
When you think about its main competition it's a little silly to keep framing it this way, but again, it's extremely effective so it doesn't really matter if it's right.