Yes, I was only referring to the AUR updates when talking about the exclusion part. And all this in the context of running pacman to perform system update and then yay to perform AUR update. I only mentioned this because this was suggested as a scenario. I only wanted to point out that even in this (unlikely) scenario you can still use yay as a more convenient means to update the system and there would be no need to run pacman at all.
Also I will point out a scenario in which you would want to hold back an AUR package. It happened to me more than once that one AUR package would not build due to some packaging error, thus canceling the whole update session, so in order to be able to update the rest of the AUR packages you’d want to do the update again but this time exclude the broken package.
EndeavourOS is indeed rising but this because the rise of linux gaming and Arch. I mean EOS, Manjaro, Garuda are all rising. People suddenly started realizing they can run A LOT of games on linux (like me ) and Arch is like a treasure for them. No adding PPAs for new drivers er el and stuff. But a hard to reach one. EOS puts it right in front of the user so they can use it right away So does Manjaro but with some modifications.
Perhaps it is also an aspect that pacman is an integral part of Arch, and AUR helper is typically an external enhancement, one can disappear at any time and another can come. In addition, it is possible to live without AUR, but of course it may not be worth it.
) and Arch is like a treasure for them. No adding PPAs for new drivers er el and stuff. But a hard to reach one. EOS puts it right in front of the user so they can use it right away 
So does Manjaro but with some modifications.