Linux

Given your background it should come to no surprise that it doesn't really matter much.

That said, I recommend Arch with some caveats, mainly with regards to the "very little effort to start using" requirement. If you know how to follow instructions, it should only be about 30-45 minutes to install it. It will on the other hand fit your other requirements of good defaults and not shipping with loads of applications. When you install an app you will get that app and nothing else, and the defaults will either be exactly what the upstream defaults would be if you built it yourself or something very close to that. You also have everything available through the AUR, and after using it for years I've yet to run into an update not going smoothly.

If you're fine with rolling release distros, go for EndeavourOS. It's based on Arch (uses the Arch repos as well as its own for its specific needs) but has everything configured for a working desktop out of the box. There's not much I can say that everyone else hasn't, if you like the Arch ecosystem but don't like the (potential) tedium of setting it up, EndeavourOS is good. The thing with rolling release distros is that the package release cycle is not stable. This is not to be confused with reliability, Arch can be a reliable distro, but where most distros stay on a particular version for its release cycle, a rolling release distro updates its packages as soon as the new version comes out. If you want that, then go full steam ahead on Endeavour.

I'm gonna throw another distro for you to try, if you're not a fan of the nature of rolling release: Nobara. You mention you wanted something stable with a good package manager, and IMO Nobara fits the bill. Like how EndeavourOS is based on Arch, Nobara is a gaming-oriented distro based on Fedora, which updates every six months. The guy who runs it works/worked for Red Hat and is responsible for the GE-Proton patches that help extend Steam Play compatibility unofficially, and he wanted to make something that was as easy as switching a game console on. There are a lot of patches and tweaks done to the kernel and apps as needed, to ensure that the user doesn't need to reach for the terminal as often, if at all. You can still do your productive work on Nobara, you can just think of it as Fedora (an already solid workstation distro) but with a gaming flair to it.

TL;DR: For stable releases, get Nobara. For rolling releases, get EndeavourOS. If one pisses you off in the future, go for the other lol

Nobara (which is Fedora but enhanced for gaming and streaming) or Debian/Debian testing or Mint

You can skip this comment if you're avoiding anything arch-based; I don't have any additional distro suggestions beyond what's already listed (they really are mostly the same), but in regard to the arch-based suggestions, I would only add that you can reduce the maintenance by choosing a DE with a slower update cycle (e.g. XFCE or any WM) and, more importantly, remembering that you don't actually have to update your system every day. Even once a month is probably fine. I don't get the impression you want vanilla Arch though; Endeavor or even Manjaro minimal will have the defaults you're looking for, or literally any other non-Arch distro if the AUR isn't important to you.

Pop os or mint

Your post screams of Debian.

So its not really a distro, but what i do on my laptop is installed rocky 9 linux and use distrobox for installing applications. Rocky is Based on Rhel, its lts is good till 2039 and is super stable

Linux mint

Linux Mint

I would avoid Ubuntu and Fedora because of their corporate shenanigans. I've had a very painless experience with Pop!_OS as my daily driver and there's a version that comes with Nvidia support already baked in. Otherwise, I would recommend Mint D which is the version that ditched Ubuntu for pure Debían (what Ubuntu is a fork of).

Fedora is a great distro

Personally, I found Arch to be difficult to get installed. I'm ok with command line stuff once everything is all setup, but having to use it for the installation process is something I found to be too easy to screw up and too time consuming overall. Also, I haven't seen any drop of vanilla Arch with a GUI installer. For the Arch experience, I generally go with EndeavourOS since it's easy to install, gives you lots of options for the window manager, and is easy to use once you get it up and running.

If you'd prefer the Debian environment, I think anything from Debian or any of its derivatives (Ubuntu et al) would be a decent choice. My favorite is Linux Mint. I've seen a lot of people describe it like "entry-level" Linux, but it's very capable and user friendly. It's where I tend to spend most of my time when running Linux and I would say usually requires the least setup since it typically just works out of the box.

There's also OpenSUSE Tumbleweed if you feel like going a somewhat different direction. I get more "traditional Linux" vibes from OpenSUSE, but packaged up in a user friendly manner. I play around with it from time to time in a VM, mostly when I want to test out some new server package locally. But, that said, it's still capable of handling anything else I throw at it, so it's fun to use all the same.

What distro do you use at work? Using that at home would benefit you professionally as well. I’d start there unless it’s redhat.

"highly configurable" and "very little effort to start using" don't blend together in car mechanics, and they don't in Linux either.

I was going to suggest Gentoo or Arch because they're the standard for "highly configurable" but they really demand some effort to start using them.

Also, so far, only Debian really, really, cares about open source, most distros don't mind copyrighted video codecs or proprietary GPU drivers if they make the user's life easier.

Void fits the bill. Debian if you don't want rolling.

I did the classic, jump in at the deep end approach, and ended up with some distro hoping for a while. I then settled on Fedora.

Why? It did everything I wanted to do and did it well. I found some distro so easy to setup but harder to maintain, some really slick but problematic with updates and apps. Fedora, for me, just worked.

All that said, there are various factors to consider, including your hardware configuration. Some distro just happen to work better on some hardware specs, especially when considering your graphics.

I have a similar usage to you, covering a little bit of everything including gaming and dev and, so far, everything continues to work. So much so, I am thinking of switching my gaming rig over to Fedora in the coming weeks.

You want Xerolinux. Ships with little, already configured and with beautiful looks, arch based.

arch is super stable ( for the most part ) at with the arch install script it's easier than ever to install, endeavouros is a gui installer but leaves you with basically an arch system

ive been running arch on my desktop and laptop for years and the only issue I had was that fucked up grub change that somehow got thru

LMDE

I have to agree with most people, arch is probably the way to go.

But given the subject I'm gonna piggy back on you and ask about KDE Neon. This is what got me back into desktop Linux after installing it on an old crappy tablet.

Now i currently run it on a couple older but upgraded AIOs and even my server that primarily does VMs.

If i understand it's a little more bleeding edge than people would normally like but I'm curious the community thoughts on it as i don't hear much. Am I missing out not running arch or mint?

You make it sound like all distros are paid, not free. With that said... all distros can deliver the same quality as you'd expect out of a "stable OS". Still, theres Nobara, Linux Mint, ZorinOS and Garuda for your "noob-friendly" needs.