I'm a Mint man, myself. But there would be no Mint without Ubuntu, so kudos where it's due (much as there would be no Ubuntu without Debian, to whom all hail).
To the contrary, old bean, this will be evidence for the defence!
BTW re: ch.10, I agree that Unity is crap. Unity and Gnome 3 are why I ended up on Mint. Cinnamon is decent and Mate is great.