Snap is a mess, and treating "deb-based" like a purity test is funny when plenty of Linux users have dealt with abandoned apt repos and stale PPAs.

If you want stable, reproducible systems Nix is a serious option now. Ubuntu isn't dead. You pick the distro that breaks your workflow the slowest, then backfill the choice with a story about freedom or community to make the packge manager choice seem less accidental.