Late to the party but just read your article and I share a lot of the struggle you said. I don't know if I can fix that by just going back to Arch. I've tried, with different levels of success, a mix between Arch and Nix, but that adds another issue of inter-compatibility of system packages between Arch and Nix which often it's a no-go.
The thing I enjoy the most on NixOS is the ability to make something, then remove it if I don't need it and don't have to worry about config files that are in an unknown-to-me path. But then there is the stateful aspect of the programs I used that I have to keep track of...
It's not just a play. It's business. There are so many people to invest on either Google or Microsoft, if more people wants to invest on Microsoft, some will do it at the expense of Google shares.
The thing I enjoy the most on NixOS is the ability to make something, then remove it if I don't need it and don't have to worry about config files that are in an unknown-to-me path. But then there is the stateful aspect of the programs I used that I have to keep track of...