I think food in general has been doing this for a long time. Over time companies are switching out more expensive ingredients for cheaper ones that are close enough and as a result over time, food tastes different. It is part of the reason why many people try and avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup. It is much cheaper than sugar, and certainly changes the flavor of the things it is in compared to regular sugar.
Another distro doesn't magically fix difficulty for a custom setup. You can checkout other distros and see if maybe you like how they are laid out and how their package managers work, but the general config portion of deploying your apps is going to be the same regardless. Something to consider is how are you getting help for your setup? Is it some content creator you follow who general does their videos/guides on ubuntu so that is how you figured everything out? Do you have friends or family who use it? If your source of knowledge and help is familiar with ubuntu, it is best to stick with it so you continue to have that resource. I can fumble around most distros, but if you want specific help, you are much better off asking me about specific issues inside an RPM based distro. I imagine others are similar in that they have generally applicable knowledge and a huge amount of specific distro knowledge since that is generally what they use.