Yosemite, no cat-like reflexes found here

Well, I have waited with this post for a while, I wanted to give Yosemite a chance. I had been running Lion on my MacBook Pro (2010) for some time but a few weeks ago I followed the advice and listened to AppStore's incessant nagging. I upgraded to Yosemite. This was a big mistake, as clunky as Lion was, it zoomed and zipped along in comparison to Yosemite. Apparently, Yosemite really requires a great deal of RAM, my machine has only 4GB but 16GB would be optimal, oh and an SSD. I understand that (sort of, although I'm not sure I understand the perceived need for that sort of "bells and whistles" performance) but what I don't understand is Apple's recommendation to upgrade. They knew that my machine couldn't handle it so this can only be explained as a shortsighted, shareholder driven manipulation to get me to buy new hardware. It has failed in my case; I have been considering switching to Linux for some time now, as OS X has progressively become bulkier, slower (for my workflow) and buggier and so when I finally upgrade it will be away from Apple. Can I really stand the ugliness of Ubuntu? I guess my choices are limited.