HN user
I've had a great experience with pulseaudio + gnome 3. Some people consider gnome 3's tight integration with pulse a downside, but so far its given me the best sound experience on linux.
On arch after installing gnome 3 my sound just works flawlessly, even my usb headphones.
I did have issues with pulse when I used XFCE though.
I run arch on a laptop with no problems at all. I specifically got a laptop with intel graphics and wireless so I have a great experience with any distro :) Arch required almost no setup when it came to graphics/sound/wireless. Just had to install xf86-video-intel and xf86-input-synaptics.
IMO its best to stay the hell away from switchable graphics period if you intend to use linux.
Per application volume is the feature of PA most people wanted. Windows 7 has this and it works great. In PA however... not so much. Linux does need something like pulseaudio, but pulseaudio does indeed suck :(