Mint is great, i’d say stick to it if it’s working! :P

Unless you want to branch out, I don’t think it’s much of a failure to return back home to a “noob distro.” To my eyes no such thing exists, they are just working operating systems and there’s nothing noob or beginner about that

I do use Arch, but because I’ve had bad luck with (proprietary) OS’s in general, so being able to choose exactly what to install and being able to fix it myself (if something ever happens) is something I value a lot. But I will say it takes a delicate type of nerd to handle that 🤣