I think I am that Jon, Bonnie.

Some of it is because I prefer KDE to the Gnome and Unity desktops (both the desktops themselves and the applications that go with them, eg kwrite vs gedit, k3b vs the gnome CD burner, etc). Ubuntu do offer a KDE version, Kubuntu but I found it always (at least used to - I've not tried it in a while) felt to me as something rather clumsily bolted on. By contrast I find the OpenSuse KDE version feels quite polished.

Another factor is that although Ubuntu seems to be regarded by some as the easiest to install, I find I can get to the final installation I want more easily with OpenSuse. Some of that of course is because I'm more familiar with the latter but I am a fan of Yast as a setup/configuration tool.

One thing with OpenSuse that I don't think is obvious (at least up to and including 12.2 - I've not installed the latest version from CD.DVD) is that you need to do a couple of things after the initial install for multimedia. dvdcss repository needs adding for libdvdcss for dvd reading. Also, packman repository needs adding and I'd suggest switching the system packages to use that - doing that will mean you would get the mp3 enabled versions of audacity,k3b, etc.

I also add the nVidia repository for my PC to get the (proprietary but) accelerated graphics for my graphics card.