Understand what you are saying but you are approaching this from
the point of view of a Linux specialist. Ubuntu appeals to a much
wider audience and many will be converts from Windows so the re-boot
is firmly entrenched. It's not a case of 'not being bothered to learn'
it's using this new OS to do their daily computing. If a re-boot is
what they need to do then they aren't fazed by it - and as mentioned,
it's a lot quicker than re-booting Windows

Horses for courses ??

If you re-booted the servers just to load / unload a module you'd not
be a Linux Server Admin for long.