IMO Arch’s defaults (especially w.r.t. audio and fonts) are a little nicer than Gentoo’s, but that’s a pretty minor inconvenience all things considered.

The ability to patch packages with little effort ( https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki//etc/portage/patches ) is the main reason I’m currently considering switching to gentoo.

There are valid criticism to be made about cosmic desktop, like

*Lists two positives*

If that’s the best example of criticism to be had about COSMIC, then it’s practically flawless. Except of course, though, it isn’t. Aside from the general lack of polish, I’d argue that there’s not enough customization. E.g. things that should really be a slider or spin control (or better yet multiple sliders/spin controls) like corner radii are multiple choice button things (not to mention that the ‘square’ style is anything but.) Some of the sliders that do exist (particularly the size ones) have very few set points that make them essentially disguised drop downs. I could probably find dozens more things to criticize if I cared to sit down and nitpick everything.