It's all down to your use case. I've been using CachyOS on my desktop and laptop because I game, but for my homelab? Debian all the way(well Proxmox on bare metal, Debian containers).

But I don't understand what you're saying about Desktop Environments here? You can install most DEs on pretty much any distro...I get you probably like the Out-Of-Box experience, but I wouldn't let that be the limiting factor in your distro choice.

I do love Plasma though and it's my defacto DE choice with any distro I use.