Perhaps the sweet spot is "stable rolling release" like SuSE Tumbleweed Slowroll or Void Linux?

In any case, I am using both Debian and Arch for 15 and 10 years and had a bit less problems with Arch on the Desktop than with Debian.

I believe the key point is perhaps backwards compatibilty, not freezing system parts; and rolling release systems seem to foster backward compatibility. To underline that: When did you worry the last time that a Linux kernel version bumb would break your system?

I think the best of both worlds, assuming you don't need rebootless updating, is the distros that act as immutable for any given update set, but allow updates ala rolling release and just cache the previous image. This way you have the newest packages while having an easy recovery method if the update breaks things

Last month, but that’s cuz I’m an idiot still stuck with Nvidia drivers

Whoever equated "stable" with "inactive" is a fucking moron.

If your stable release can't handle proper updates over its stable content, then get a better stable distro. There's a reason why some distro trees are Enterprise and some are "Enterprise".

If your stable release can’t handle proper updates over its stable content, then get a better stable distro.

It is not necessarily the distro. Apart from NVidia drivers breaking and breaking grub dual boot configurations, I had most problems with GNOME upgrades.

But the key question is: Is it better to have rare, bigger changes, or frequent, smaller changes? For desktop and development, my experience slightly favours the latter. For servers, I had no problems with the Debian model.

Do yourself a favour. I am so glad I got rid of NVidia stuff.

Depends on use case. The way I see it is that if its sensitive or requires specific software I want something stable. When first started woth linux I used Ubuntu things never really broke until the next LTS patch then I started getting programs that wouldn't update to the newest version, or the version I needed was only in the last LTS.

With gaming nothing of value ever lives on a gaming rig, I expect for it to get messy (with app comp data, cache, proton varaints, numerous windows directories etc) to the point reinstalling feels easier, and I only ever need to download games from gog/steam. But with rolling release I actually see frequent updates for nvidia GPUs and I think they are making actual improvements more and more. I've never had an update break stuff on me like it has with Ubuntu has, but I haven't used a rolling release long enough or in the same way to get the feeling for what people mean by rolling releases are more likely to break your system.