I've used Linux exclusively for several years now, but problems that killed earlier attempts were:
I'd encounter a hardware driver issue I didn't know how to fix (Nvidia...)
I'd dual-boot Windows for playing games and maintaining both OSes was too much (this was pre-Steam client on Linux)
I wanted to customize some setting that the desktop environment's control panel didn't support, and I'd have to copy/paste terminal commands I didn't understand, usually breaking something which necessitated a reinstall.
Ubuntu would provide outdated / buggy versions of software, and installing the newer version meant installing PPAs which could conflict with other packages / cause other instabilities I didn't know how to fix.
The first two have seen massive improvements but I still find most desktop environments limiting if you aren't a terminal expert / Arch type of user, and Ubuntu still provides buggy versions of programs.
It's the only one I've used so far, but KDE Plasma has worked pretty well for me. I use EndeavourOS as my distro, which apparently is like Arch with training wheels, but it's worked really well for me. It's definitely solved your last issue as you can easily access the Arch User Repository.
Yeah I think for the typical user non-rolling distros introduce more problems than they solve. It makes sense in a server environment, but it was so frustrating to look up a severe bug, find its bug report, and see that it had already been fixed upstream 6 months previous. Glad that there are better options now for users of different skill levels.
That hardware issue I encountered was actually because the Nvidia drivers bundled by Ubuntu were old and didn't support my card, not because Nvidia's latest drivers had issues. Crazy that Ubuntu was okay with having their latest release just not work on a mid-range GPU (Nouveau also didn't support the card yet).