Doesn't Ubuntu and other out-of-the-box desktop friendly distros come with good font settings from the get go?

I use Arch Linux but even here it's not much of a hassle given that there is a very informative wiki page not to mention packages with good configuration presets (infinality).

> Doesn't Ubuntu and other out-of-the-box desktop friendly distros come with good font settings from the get go?

Yes, exactly!

Try using Infinality (http://www.infinality.net/blog/). I am using it on Fedora 18 and loving it!

The good thing is that it only has to be figured out once, then the information can be spread almost freely ... there is something called “the internet” which excels at this.

"the internet" also excels at spreading misinformation or retaining information that once was correct but no longer is for extended periods of time.