Sounds like you speedrunned distro hopping and used anything but the stuff people actually end up using. I recommend not to look at distros but the base OS. Distro is just a bunch of things on a base. Also I've never used Gnome, but friends who have used it eventually switched to literally anything else.
Also, never expect things to be 100% plug and play and then complain about them with no research. There is always a limit with every software. And there are always resources and guides.