I made a post a few days ago asking your opinion on Manjaro and it was very mixed, with a slightly negative overall opinion. I heard some recommend EndeavourOS instead and did some online research and it seems to be pretty solid and not have the repository problem that Manjaro has.
Just for context I am a Linux noob and have only used Mint for about the past six months. While I don’t have any major complaints, I am looking to explore more distros and the Arch repository with its rolling releases. I am not a huge fan of how certain packages on apt are a few years old and outdated. However, I also don’t have the time to be always configuring my OS and just want something that works well out of the box.
Is EndeavourOS a solid choice?
Your issue seems to be outdated packages, so I wouldn’t recommend distro hopping(especially to something arch based) for just that reason. Look into workarounds for those packages in mint itself. In the worst case scenario there’s also the option of compiling from source.
I wouldn’t recommend distro hopping to arch without some high level understanding of the different moving parts of the OS. EndeavourOS has given me almost no issues but when things break(like grub a while back) you have to be OK with touching parts of the system that just work and are taken for granted on distros like mint. It’s why I don’t consider anything arch based friendly to a “noob user”.
If you’re a “noob user” who wants to learn more you can try endeavourOS, that’s kind of the spirit of it.