It's also second only to .com in terms of query volume in ICANN's Magnitude statistics with 980 mil vs .internal's 60 mil. Not sure if that makes it a de facto standard, but it's close.
From what I've seen, there's no real performance difference with a gaming distro. What they tend to offer is an out of box experience that is more tailored towards gaming than a regular distro (think 'game mode', Steam, Proton, and maybe Lutris pre-installed, Nvidia drivers if you need them).
Is this on Arch? I have to assume no because you didn't say... ;) I've been thinking about trying out Hyprland but unsure if it will jive with my Fedora system.
I'm running Pop! OS on a Surface Pro 5 and it works pretty much flawlessly with the Linux Surface kernel installed. That said, 99% of the time I'm using it with the keyboard attached so I haven't done much testing of it in 'tablet mode', nor with a stylus.
I believe they offer refunds if you cancel within 30 days.