I think youre missing the point of ditching MS. As long as you are still
tied to all of its apps - you arent ditching anything.

Notepad is just a text editor. Use gedit.
I havent come across anything in MSO that OO cant do.
There are a few apps that I couldnt find matches for so I created them
myself.

WINE - like the real thing - should be used sparingly.

But why use the MS software on Unbuntu at all. That for me would be
clinging to MS. Use both and have the best of both worlds.