Somewhat paradoxically, I consider immutable distros to be a net improvement for power users and a bigger hurdle for casual users.
Mostly that's because immutable moves the pain in the ass to the setup part of the application/OS life-cycle, while theoretically eliminating the kinds of issues that crop up months or years later when something stops working, or when a custom config used to get it working originally breaks something else as things relying on it mature over time.
On the other hand, mutable distros make setting up new software a breeze (in most cases, anyways) with far more under-the-hood tinkering available and have a significantly lower barrier to entry as a result, but become difficult to manage when the user no longer remembers all the customizations and dependencies they have introduced.
So really, there will still be pains in the ass either way. Just kind of a choice on which kind of issues the user would rather predominantly deal with.
I'm with you on it, because my completionist tendencies saw me trekking between one too many copy-and-pasted side dungeons in the 50 hours I gave Elden Ring before I couldn't take it any more and never came back to finish the game.
It's not like the moment-to-moment combat is any less fun than the games that came before it, but since the game lets me indulge in my worst tendency of finishing every optional thing before progressing things it just felt like a meaningless checklist slog.
It's definitely a "me" problem, but it's just one reason why I tend to prefer a more focused experience than a sprawling open world.