I can actually configure and understand everything the UNIX way, which is actually important to me, because I do some wacky shit with my system + I’m a developer, I physically need to understand my system so I can debug it when it starts to eat shit

Although, seriously, if you’re not a developer and don’t intend on doing something specific with your system, just pick a mainstream distro and roll. I install Mint MATE or Ubuntu on my secondary systems too.