HooRU Always good to keep up with changing times & drift.
Mint provided a hint of support, forcing competition to be less abusive.
MX_Linux raised the support bar, forcing competition to up their game.
( There’s a spin thereof with audio & video tools - AVLinux, as I recall. )
Manjaro similarly is less-prickly competition for Arch, the best at doc.
Generally, DebIan-based distros favor stability, surging slowly.
Arch OTOH is a leading-edge distro, and Arch-based distros keep up, sorta.
Base distros assume high skill-level, {base-distro}-based add layer(s) of nicer.
( Usually - there’s always an outlier or two, like PCLOS AKA PC_Linux_OS. )
If you’re curious, check DistroWatch - they track many distros.
LinuxTracker offers access to many versions/vintages.
( And then there’s DistroSea for a quick online look-see. )
Testing with VM is easier for some, even with VM overhead and issues.
Others use live methods for cleaner testing at full performance.