I’ve had the same path as you. Arch has been the simplest distro I’ve tried. And with archinstall it’s a breeze.
I’ve also found that Plasma 6 takes away most of the hassle with setting up a desktop - for my use case.
Been using a PC since Win 3.1 and it’s by far the most stable system I’ve ever had

Do you have desktop or laptop?
For desktop, I recommend getting an HDD for storage. They’re cheaper, I bought a 4tb Seagate Ironwolf for less than 100€.
I also have a 1tb nvme, where I store things that require fast reads like my gaming collection while the system is installed in an SSD. (The parts were not bought at the same time). For laptop, you might want to stick to what you have inside and just get a good external USB. The usual brands are still good and I think prices have flatten across the industry.