I guess it’s time to leave Ubuntu as a new user and switch to a new distro. Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Mint were my choice, but their base, Ubuntu, is becoming “bloated”, and turning to a latest computers’ OS. And I think it will affect its derivatives. Which distro would you suggest to switch to. I aint rich. I’m already aware of Fedora and its xfce, kde spins, Opensuse Leap and Tumbleweed, Debian and its derivatives, and Void. Are you planning to switch too.
CachyOS is what Mint thinks it is, and could be if they didn’t go the debian route. It’s practically as easy as Mint, infinitely more performant, and likely runs whatever you want (though switching to appimage packages instead of deb packages for random internet software does indeed feel worse.)