You make some good points, but for me, I don't think my wife wants to or will go beyond simply picking up the phone and being able to either answer a call or getting a dial tone and being able to make a call. I would guess that we are a bit older and maybe that makes the difference. Most of our peers are from the POTS world, and that's one of the reasons I have been unable to interest them in VOIP. My world was telephony and electronics, so I fall outside that box.

The other interesting thing you mentioned that your wife was hearing on call waiting, is exactly what I had just updated in a ticket to support.
As with modern call waiting, you will get some sort of ring splash or tone to indicate a call wanting to come in, but the constant ringing you and I hear doesn't sound normal. I have the GS286 and before they just upgraded the firmware, the announce slpash continued throughout the entire time the caller stayed on line, making it difficult to continue the call. Since the upgrade, I now get exactly what your wife heard.
I know support has been in touch with GS, waiting for a fix.
I have an SPA2102 that I have programed up for a backup, but haven't tried it to see if the same situation exists...