A Windows user boots Ubuntu on a new laptop, say, and gets a low-res 'safe mode' telling them that there's no specific support for their video hardware ("Ubuntu failed to start the windowing system because it was unable to properly configure your hardware").

Yeah, now what?

They can't download a driver package and update. They're stuck with whatever came with the version of X in that Ubuntu release. They can't use a driver off a CD that came with the machine, because there aren't any. If X was capable of a better mode it would have used it, like the plain vesa driver with a resolution matching the LCD.

So what are they supposed to do?

It's better than getting dumped to a VT, sure, but it doesn't solve the real issue. On Windows 95 I could put in the CD, install driver.exe, reboot and presto. With Ubuntu the only option for the average user is to wait 6 months.

This feature might be useful if you like to intentionally break xorg.conf, but unless there is actually a way to get real hardware support installed, rather than seeing if you can force X into a different mode (which it should do automatically), it seems pretty useless.