Thinkpads are absolute tanks and support Linux quite well. Would shy away from the T470 and T480 though. The touchpad on those isn't really well implemented. If you don't care about reliability my Surface Laptop Go does Fedora Silverblue 38 really well.
You're on the right track! That feeling of understanding less is normal - and good news is that it isn't true. You understand more than you did before - but now you also know of some other things you don't know about yet. This is good and exciting! I wish I were in your shoes so I could experience this for the first time again.
I would recommend Fedora Silverblue 38. It is an immutable OS, meaning that it is impossible to break it to the point where it doesn't work. Since the root file system is read only, like a mobile OS, you would be hard pressed to actually break it. Don't worry though, most graphical applications are available as flatpaks on Flathub. Flathub is integrated with the app store in Fedora 38, no need to use the terminal. For terminal applications you want to use there are toolboxes, which are little mini fedora containers that have access to your home directory and some other integrations. Also Fedora Silverblue is easy to install and works with most hardware.
I'm also moving away from RHEL. I have 3 RHEL servers right now, a hypervisor host, a podman vm, and a Samba share vm. I really liked that you could specify regulatory compliance at install time. Makes it really easy for standing up compliant servers. Are there any distros that do something similar?
No because if I stopped talking to someone it is for a reason
Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field I will be meeting you there
Does Debian let you specify regulatory compliance at install time? Or is it a do it yourself manually situation where you write an Ansible playbook.
iPhone 12, wanted something that would be supported for a long time and with prompt security updates. Also have an iPad and Apple Watch so the integration is nice. On the desktop though I run Kubuntu which would integrate better with Android.
My only issue with this is that the Ubuntu desktop is really buggy right now. 23.04 has plenty of odd issues like the file browser not showing the correct file as deleted, instead making it look like another random one in the same directory got deleted. But refreshing the file browser corrects the graphical issue. But due to many little paper cuts like that I'd shy away from recommending Ubuntu.
I use an iPhone 12 because:
longevity. Between software updates and an over powered phone cpu I know it will last. Android phones in general barely get security updates.
Simplicity. I used to root and install ROMs on my android phone. I used to jailbreak iPhones. I’m done with that now. I do enough technical work at work I don’t want to have to mess with my phone.
Security. Ties into updates somewhat, but how often do you hear about iOS malware? It is usually big news when you do.