I doubt any of these reviewers ran Linux Lite for any length of time under any daily load.
I write internet articles/blogs for a living (not on Linux, but other tech-related topics), and you are correct. Trust me when I say that most of the articles you see on the internet today are simply rehashed and 99% based on other, similar articles.
I am not a competent Linux user, but I am a competent PC user. I live in a country where perhaps 80% of the home/personal PC/laptops are far, far below the international par, and I often find myself doing first-line support because in the land of the blind the one-eyed is king.
If you have a device that can cope with it, Windows 10 is a great, if malware-prone solution for the average pc user/home or office worker. However, a genuine Windows OS is quite simply unaffordable in large parts of the world. People resort to "cracked copies" - and I don't think anyone need to explain the sheer scale of the malware problem for those users. Of the 80% below-par devices, around 60% are so bad that they actually run Windows 7. The rest are in imminent danger of losing their ability to cope with Windows 10's hardware demands.
To add insult to injury, Microsoft's increasingly "F*ck the Poor" hardware requirements are starting to take a toll on both legal and illegal Windows users. I see, on a weekly basis:
1. Users whose devices previously had no hope of coping with Windows 10 and who stuck to their Windows 7 (both legal and not), or even Windows XP. In some cases, we're talking 32bit!
2. Users whose devices are starting to battle with Windows 10 (both legal and not) and who can't afford better hardware. In my experience, talking comparatively here from a land of not-plenty, and ignoring the intricacies of CPU's, the minimum requirements to run Windows 10 are: 4G RAM, 1Ghz processor, and preferably, an SSD. Anything less means utter frustration for the average user.
3. It is gradually becoming utterly nonviable to run W7 even on devices that are not connected to the internet.
Conclusion: Users with old devices who are unwilling to switch to Linux will, within the next two years or sooner, literally, have no device. Therefore, I advocate switching to Linux and I advocate finding the smallest, most lightweight distro possible (because of the generally hopeless hardware specs).
Over the past 4 years I have personally installed and extensively tested (not in any particular order):
1. Linux Mint (excellent but, by now, it needs a relatively high end device i.e. a device that is marginally able to cope with Windows 10)
2. Linux Peppermint (similar to Mint but with much more modest hardware requirements)
3. Linux Lite (hated it at first and avoided it for the next 2 years)
4. Q4OS (Tiny! If you use the Windows theme it's fantastic for "old people" who just cannot learn Linux - as long as you keep an eye on them in the long term)
5. Antix (Tiny and love the philosophy behind it, but not good for first-time users)
6. Bodhi (First-time users found it hard to customise)
7. Lubuntu (Clunky user experience 2.5 years ago - it's probably much better by now)
Based on my experience in environments that are severely challenged on the hardware, technically skills, and economical fronts:
If your hardware is marginally Windows-capable and you cba to do any customisation of any kind, Mint is excellent for first-time users.
In almost all other circumstances, Linux Lite is the best long-term solution for non-techie computer users.
