Can we all agree CentOS is the best Linux distro for productivity and software compatibility?

it's stable.
that's about it.

"You will need an active subscription or evaluation before you download Red Hat products." (redhat) is different from "Get CentOS Now" (centos), would be the point

* = (install + gentoo)/ buntu

I use it all the time for work stuff (development) but I really don't like it. Run gentoo at home.

install genbuntu

i haven't used RHEL in a long a while but i think sysconfig is for boot-time stuff

I use CentOS for servers, but only because we want a stable platform with easily configurable security. Any distro can do that but I'd rather invest as little time as necessary on the infrastructure / platform. Vendors are used to supporting RHEL so there's less hassle there too.

For workstations, CentOS sounds terrible when you could just use a mainstream distribution suited to your particular use case or philosophy / preferences.

You literally just sign up for a free dev account. Takes 2 minutes tops.

no

CentOS with KDE yes

Somebody at RedHat thought it was a good idea to put stuff in sysconfig years ago. This cannot be changed now because compatibility. If you think that's crazy, you've never worked in a Solaris environment.