One example that comes to mind is that time they decided to send all (local) search requests to Amazon so they could present "relevant" results. Mint never implemented that stuft. Their attempt at creating a desktop environment that bridges the gap between the PC and mobile devices has - strictly imho - produced rather strange results as well. Last but not least, you mentioned a lack of interest in fiddling around, and Mint certainly makes things easy with extras like the mint driver manager.
Unity is such a strange DE. Not to say it's bad, because get used to any DE/WM and you'll come to understand it. I just find it far more confusing than Windows or OSX, which isn't a good way of getting more people into Linux, which is Canonical's goal.