Debian is solid. You probably don’t want to have to fuck around on a laptop that you’re using primarily for getting shit done. Flatpaks can handle most of the extra shit you’d want to use. That said, I used to be an Arch guy for years too, and if you’re comfortable with it, it’s fine to use, but you’ll run into the same kind of annoyances. Not true breakage usually, but eventually I got tired of having new surprise bugs in shit that was working fine before.
Also I can’t be sure, but I suspect Wayland is probably better on energy draw since it should be more efficient. Maybe try sway for your twm?
I mean they could add a diff thing, like how AUR helpers do it. It’s not much, but it’s something.