I usually start a desktop on Mint since it's got at least some new drivers and a few more tools with Cinnamon desktop.

If the hardware is finicky or there's odd devices a distro doesn't handle, I often just try a different distro instead of driver hacking. It's a very big hammer, but I'd rather have things work with the distro configs instead of maintaining it myself.

Servers? Debian.

Desktops? Mint (prettier Debian out of the box)

Otherwise? Use what works with the least effort.