Don't get me wrong I really like Nix. But like you said the learning curve is steep. And just learning the basics including flakes for instant setup is not enough. Because all your config files gotta be rewritten which is a lot of work and nix specific knowlege to aqquire. If you went through it I can totally see the benefit.
However for me personally it makes more sense to use tools that have wide adaption, such as OCI images and CI/CD to buid the image. My thought: Using Docker/Containerfiles is way more adapted by the industry so people already know how to use that. Nix on the otherhand has to not only fight against the default way UNIX systems are configured, but also do that with brand new tools.
I agree all distros are at some point breaking it's just the nature of any OS. That's why the nix paradigm or immutable OS paradigm is far superior and the future.
Vim with vim-pandoc plugin