Maybe you could explain the nightmares?
As you seem to be curious, I can tell you that I require a wide variety of software, ranging from programming tools to video production software. In addition, I have some packages from both Gnome and KDE, although not the complete desktop environments. I’d prefer not to share more to avoid revealing too much about myself online. I don’t believe the number of packages I have is the main reason for this, even though I have around 1500 packages installed. I haven’t checked, but I believe that about 20% of these packages are responsible for 80% of the updates. I upgrade once a week, usually encountering around 1000-1200 updates. I perform these updates every Friday evening, giving me the weekends to address any problems that arise. In the past 2 years, there were only 3 occasions when I had to reinstall the operating system due to severe damage; reinstalling was easier for me in those cases. Although I have a deep affection for Linux and open-source software, my work responsibilities leave me with limited time to fully immerse myself as a dedicated and meticulous Linux user who diligently seeks solutions and learns in the process. I hope to have more time in the future, but for now, this is the reality. I appreciate your answers and your patience in discussing distributions despite the unconventional criteria I’ve set.
The nightmare is seeing 1000 updates waiting for you every week. There’s no possibility of avoiding the risk of breaking something. For instance, I set up a Windows Server in 2011, and it’s still functioning flawlessly despite undergoing two upgrades (not reinstalls) to two newer Windows Server versions. It simply works. I’ve always dreamt of having that level of stability on my Linux laptop, along with the convenience of AUR 
You could easily get that same experience with something like Debian Stable, or with Enterprise Linux.
However you would then need to abandon the “latest versions” requirement.
There’s always pros/cons and use-cases.
Comparing Windows Server to Endeavour OS is not really a fair comparison 
I think it might be worth testing some other distros in a VM or a spare old laptop and seeing if you like any of them better.
Worst case scenario you learn a tiny bit by using different things (DEs, package managers, etc), win-win 
Yeah, I kinda figured as much.
That’s totally fine. I appreciate your taking the time to address my question.
It might not be the only factor, but I do think it is one of the reasons (the other possible reason being the fact that the software that you use has a lot of dependencies) you are regularly swarmed with so many package updates. Since Arch is a rolling-release distro, it usually takes only a few days for the latest release of a package (from upstream) to be packaged and pushed into the Arch repos. So if you have a lot of packages installed, and those packages frequently get updates…
If one library gets updated, all the packages that depend on that library will need to be rebuilt and updated. On my lightweight system, maybe only 3 packages require rebuilt; but on yours, it could be 100 out of the 1500 installed packages that depend on the same library and therefore require an update.
Not at all. Sometimes listing out what you need can help you gain some perspective.
Regardless, I do hope you manage to find a setup that best fits your workflow. Good luck.
You could achieve this by relying on an LTS distro and using flatpaks, snaps or Appimages to be fair. Your GUI packages would be up to date and your base system would be stable. However, that would mean relying on flatpaks, snaps or Appimages.
Everything involves trade offs.
I used Arch for almost 5 years straight and the only thing that broke on me was my own doing (I won’t use fish ever again).
You must have some very interesting hardware to cause such issues. There’s people here with 5-10 year old installs.
What kind of issues do you see?
I might be mistaken in my recollection, but as far as I remember, it was Python at one point, followed by a problem with grub, and then issues with display drivers.
I should explain that I am entirely in agreement with you. Most problems are caused by my ignorance. However, if there were an open-source OS with an indestructible core and an extensive, modern package manager that didn’t necessitate so many unpredictable updates each week, I would switch to it immediately. I now realize that such an OS doesn’t exist, and I actually feel a slight regret for having taken up everyone’s time. But at the very least, I’m now certain that I’m using the best distro for my workflow.
What issues did you have with the fish shell?
Everyone would. We used to have a diagram when I built cars. It has 3 options, cheap, fast, reliable. Caveat is you can only ever pick 2.
This does exist actually, just not with your caveat of no Ubuntu Fedora, openSUSE or whatever. I would say use Fedora workstation or even Silverblue.
It’s what I use everywhere I don’t want to do anything. Hell, my wife uses it and knows nothing about Linux.
I can only say i have Kde with btrfs file system, btrfs-assistant, snapper support, btrfsmaintenance using grub and i have no issues with updates or booting. There are at times on Arch that you have to do manual interventions occasionally when updating but i don’t get many issues. It depends on the software you have installed also.
Maybe you had the wrong hook! 
I haven’t been as lucky but I will say that having a separate home partition means I can reinstall my base system and have zero data loss. Heck after I reinstalled Thunderbird I didn’t have to set up my email accounts even. This was after an update inexplicably meant I couldn’t boot and chrooting didn’t resolve it…
You are right this idea of something breaking up after an update even though it might not which’s usually the case is something a person wouldn’t like on a production and dependable machine.
I would advise you to take a look at btrfs filesystem and its ability for backups using tools like timeshift or snapper which can be automated to create updates on each upgrade as I have on my machine.
That’s something you can have as a reliable fallback to switch to and proceed with updates with confidence knowing that even if it breaks, I have a working copy of my latest system that works.
Btrfs snapshots or backups are a different kind of backups, don’t take much space and has something to do with the difference between the backup and your current files, only the difference is then changed and takes space, i guess it’s something like, i might be wrong, you can look up on how it works.
But the main thing is about space so it takes negligible amount of space, you won’t even know you have a backup.
That’s why I would recommend you to look at it.