I've tried occasionally hosting XMPP servers for a long time and sadly I didn't have as nice of an experience client-wise as you did. Especially on Windows, where most people live, the biggest clients don't properly support video or even voice calling and OMEMO support used to be really hit or miss in a way where depending on the person I was texting I had to switch to OTR. (This is, admittedly, way better now)
Maybe the modern web-based clients like Movim are better, never got around to testing them. I'll admit that Android always was the golden platform for XMPP thanks to Conversations - as long as you stick to that on both ends it's the perfect experience.
It is sad indeed that the development of clients relies on the volunteer work of a very limited group of individuals, mostly explainable by the lack of "hype" around Jabber/XMPP.
FWIW it's been smooth-sailing for me and my non-tech family and friends for many years now. BTW, OTR is deprecated, and OMEMO just works.
Most people live on their smartphone for IM these days, at least in my circles. I have been surprised by how few people are actually interested in getting a chat app on their "real computer".
I think many people don't even realize how inter-device their IM service usage really is due to how seamless the web frontends of WhatsApp/Telegram/etc. are. Some people like to use these when working on their desktop for 8+ hours a day.
I don't witness this around me. By far, most of my "real life contacts" will only use their phone to use messaging apps, and don't use whatsapp web at all.
Maybe the modern web-based clients like Movim are better, never got around to testing them. I'll admit that Android always was the golden platform for XMPP thanks to Conversations - as long as you stick to that on both ends it's the perfect experience.