Yeahh immutable system is the way, I spent so much energy reinstalling systems that felt dirty and slow or just distro hopping. Then I tried NixOS believe me I’m not going anywhere else
Arch is pretty painless on the long run, almost everything is available when you combine AUR and official. I’ve had some package manager issues after not using my laptop for like 6 months but I believe it more a lack for arch knowledge rather than a problem for intermediate / advanced user.
What was frustrating, like in every single imperative distro it that I feel like the system isn’t clean anymore after a while and I end up reinstalling or hoping for another distro.
What I found to daily drive everything rock solid but in a funny way is NixOS, which is declarative. If you have some time and curiosity I would recommend checking how it works. No more distro hoping / installs for me