What's the best way to recover when Ubuntu Mate freezes?

I know. That really wasn't a fair question.

I was reading Jay's comments Screen flickers twice every startup - #14 by Etamuk

I know that 16.04 was a huge upgrade and Canonical made a lot of changes from 14.04. While I know these things are eventually going to get "ironed out", in the meantime, I would really prefer a seat on the sidelines.