I like the sound of Manjaro having a bit of a buffer, so will likely give that one a try. What you describe with Arco Type D sounds like what I did with a Debian netinstall about 6 years ago. That was fun, but more work than I'd like to do again at this point.
I hope I've got enough experience with linux to make the transition not too difficult. It's been a lot of years since I used a non-Debian-based distro, so I'm interested in seeing what the other side looks like.
Arco D takes planning, same as Arch or Debian or Slack or.... Arco D just removes the hassle of the initial install, similar to Ubuntu Server. I pretty much can guarantee I can backup, reinstall, and have all my data back in place other than games in less time than most users or even most distros can really even get started putting everything back. While it sounds daunting to have to install all your programs, if you keep notes, it's really just a simple command.
Here's my install processInstall Arco D with zero extras.
update
. . . (you literally type update on Arco)
sudo pacman -S sddm plasma-meta libreoffice-fresh dolphin-plugins ark
. . . (installs desktop manager, kde, libreoffice, file manager and de/compression program, this can be split up to simplify it but there's a reason it's so much to do manually)
sudo systemctl enable sddm
. . . (enables desktop manager)
reboot
. . . (type reboot)
Once inside I restore my data (this is why I needed dolphin and ark), open my cheat sheet (this is why I install libreoffice-fresh) and copy this one large command that installs all my apps at once. This is not technically everything, I install a few things from the AUR later but you get the idea.
sudo pacman -S gparted thunderbird filezilla openscad gimp gthumb gnome-disk-utility traceroute gdmap okular pavucontrol spectacle htop nano firefox i7z glances kbackup keepass cura qbittorrent prusa-slicer galculator kate gedit vlc gnome-keyring kwalletmanager uget audacious freecad vinagre cura falkon
Enable bluetooth (disabled by default)
sudo systemctl enable bluetooth
sudo systemctl start bluetooth
Total time about 15-20 minutes if I hurry, but I can be back and running for the most part in 10 minutes.
From this I tweak the look, install video drivers if needed, Steam, start my games installing, all this takes another 10 minutes but it takes a while for the games to download. BUT... This whole thing only works if you keep a USB installer handy, easy to access backups, have a cheat sheet/notes for your list of apps to install and aren't constantly having to go search for commands. If you take the time to build a cheat sheet and have a good backup system in place it can really streamline things.