so staying flexible is important for multiple front

Yeah. I do work to stay current in the big 3, for the same reason. That used to mean alternating my home setup as well, but now I only do it on my employers dime. I think the reason is mix of my having less patience for proprietary interoperability issues at home, and of Linux just being able to do everything I care about.

for Remote Desktop, all the Linux solutions are.....not that great, they work

Agreed. I recently bought a nice little portable monitor for home, for exactly this reason. If Linux RDP was a better experience, I might not have bothered. That said, I even do my grandparent's remote IT support from my Debian machine now, regardless of whether they're on Windows or Mac. So I'm pretty satisfied with it where I absolutely need RDP.

Not sure what your Windows guys mean by needing Windows to remotely manage Windows,

Yeah. Many of them are point and clickers. Some of us are mentoring them on expanded tooling available. Their interest varies, which is fair. I don't want their job, anyway, so it's not my problem how efficiently or inefficiently they do it.