Depends on the definition of "works ootb". For the most part I would say yes but a few little things here and there not, IMHO. It also depends on the distro but "ALt-Tab" through windows across workspaces (virtual desktops) often requires an install of dconf and setting it yourself. Just as a minor example. But that perhaps admittedly is nitpicking. Overall Mate works perfectly fine of course.
There was an LWN article about PipeWire [1] a while back. Among the interesting parts of the article was an explanation for the PulseAudio debacle, and why PipeWire likely doesn't have the same problem. Basically, PulseAudio exercised several kernel APIs that had existed in ALSA for a long time, but had not been used widely. Hence it uncovered a ton of bugs in device drivers that were not tested against applications using these function calls before. By now, all those bugs are fixed because PulseAudio is widely used. PipeWire is using mostly the same APIs as PulseAudio and Jack, so it's not going to have the same troubles as PulseAudio.
Eh. PulseAudio is nothing like PulseAudio. People hated PA when it was forced into distros before it was ready, and still had many bugs. That PA doesn't exist any more and most of the issues have been ironed out for years. PulseAudio can do a lot more things than ALSA ever could.
(Yes, obviously at least one person reading this will still have intractable issues with PulseAudio, but there are exceptions to every rule. By and large it just works and has been a great solution for Linux for close to a decade now.)
