Every day, there are NEW DAW users who have no plugins.
I think you're also not fully informed on the scale of existing plugin development on Linux. Several commercial developers now produce plugins for Linux, and there are some open source ones for many tasks that are actually outstanding. Noise removal/restoration is one particularly weak spot.
Finally, Ardour doesn't run on just Linux. Anyone on OS X or Windows can use the program, along with their full set of VST (Windows) or AU (OS X) plugins on those platforms.
I think you're also not fully informed on the scale of existing plugin development on Linux. Several commercial developers now produce plugins for Linux, and there are some open source ones for many tasks that are actually outstanding. Noise removal/restoration is one particularly weak spot.
Finally, Ardour doesn't run on just Linux. Anyone on OS X or Windows can use the program, along with their full set of VST (Windows) or AU (OS X) plugins on those platforms.