Qubes does have answers to the device stuff, like sticking network devices in a network vm, which only talks to a firewall vm, which talks to your other vms. There is a reasonable gui interface where you can just plug devices into particular VMs for other things.

In my usage I've never felt the need to share stuff other than the network/sound/storage stuff that qubes make just work. Other devices tend to be just plug them into the particular VM that needs them. YMMV.

I would say that perhaps containers could do just as well, or some other technology. The thing qubes brings to the table is that other people are doing most of the heavy lifting to make a usable desktop out of a highly virtualized system.

There may be path dependent reasons why qubes approach isn't the best possible... but it doesn't matter because so much stuff just working is worth so much. That the compromise we always make when running a distribution... one could meta-x butterfiles and write your own kernel from scratch, or whatever. Or you can run a system created by others. Their system may have decisions you disagree with or are objectively bad, but they saved you 12 months of tinkering with the dynamic linker-- well worth it. :)

For me, the alternative of having my whole laptop compromised by some browser zero day or because a malicious party sent me some malware document was just not viable. I was already carrying two laptops for isolation, and suffering some anxiety from the residual risk. But in my case I've been targeted specifically (due to cryptocurrency bullshit), a friend and former colleague was hit with an astonishingly sophisticated attack that used stuff like BMC vulnerabilities on his web server and then traversal with X11 forwarding and stuff like that all to just break into his desktop.

So I'd probably be using qubes today even if I could only move the mouse with my tongue and the computer was slowed down to the speed for a 486sx. But the incorrect belief that it would be that kinda hit really delayed my adoption. It's a hit, it's real, but at least for my usage it was far smoother than I expected.

I think right now the only obvious wart I experience is that full screen video stutters pretty badly. So I just don't watch video full screen on the laptop now. There are things that might fix it, but I haven't bothered even trying.

There are benefits I didn't expect too. For example, The operating system image in a normal application VM isn't persistent, only your home directory. So you can just scribble all over the OS install in an app vm and it'll go away when you restart it. If you want it to be persistent you change the underlying templatevm. So to get something working I can totally take a chainsaw to my configuration confident I won't get stuck with anything broken. Once I figure out the changes I can apply just the required steps in a template.

Another benefit is that updating fedora versions is a riskless breeze--- install a new template vm. shut down your app vms, click to change template. Restart them if some particular app vm is broken, switch it back and worry about it when you have time.