There is nothing better than Xfce, if you dont like the desktop, at least Xfce allows you to customize. KDE seems interesting, but the last time i tried it, 10 years ago more or less, it was a bit buggy.
Drito
I prefer a glibc replacement.
Have you tried Mac OS ? It is probably more polished than distros and less enshittified than Windows.
IMHO distros share the same apps. The defaults can differ, the implementations too but the user can install apps that are on other distros.
I m not experienced but this video shows a way to use pass.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7t5M4FXqs9E&pp=ygUWZ2l0IHBsdXMgY29tbWFuZCBsaW5lIA%3D%3D
It is that software. https://www.passwordstore.org/ I still backup in an external dd but there are ways to store them online, like a git repository as instance.
I use Librewolf, I manage passwords with pass and rofi. Hoppefuly AIs will write a new FOSS web browser. I read here and here that the web standards are too big to be implemented by humans.
You can also install Alpine.
I customised Xfce a lot, only with menu settings. I removed the window tabs from the status bar, the focused window title is written on the status bar. The window manager was removed for bspwm. The result is an optimized screen space while keeping the convenience of a DE.
I use Xfce with a swap of the window manager by Bspwm. I got the easy to configure Xfce status bar (instead of things like polybar and others...) and also the Xfce terminal, file manager... The window title is written to the status bar. I use Super + B/N to switch the workspaces. Some apps are set to floating mode like the image viewer, the calculator... So everything can be displayed in a good tiling WM and I don't need to manipulate windows.
The website looks cool.