I don't buy that. You either want that as a hobby or you don't. You can't have it both ways.

Buy a PC and use the distro on it. They seem alright. Or use the mainstream distro of today. They come with a desktop and a browser and LibreOffice installed etc

Or you want everything 100% specifically tailored to you and make all the important decisions yourself.

You just cant have both at the same time. It is just physically not possible. And that isn't a limitation of the OS.

And also with other computers you do answer that question. Do I buy a Mac, do I buy something with Windows, maybe a Chromebook? Acer? Lenovo, HP?... M2 processor or Intel or AMD? It's pretty much a hobby...

(If you want an honest answer to your other questions: Use your distro's defaults unless you specifically need something different. I cannot stress that enough. Otherwise you will need to put in extra effort. And it's going to be your fault. Always use the distro's package manager if possible. Don't use Flatpak, Snap etc if you aren't specifically told to because of proper reasons. And don't listen to Ubuntu and whatever they're trying to push nowadays. This might change in the future. But I think it's sound advice for the next few years. And don't use custom file managers etc. You'll get one of the major destop environments. Use the default software that comes with it. It comes with a default file manager etc for a reason.)