On any OS, I prefer to install a clean system rather than upgrade. It's always a mess. Windows, MacOS, android, whatever. If you're going to do a major version upgrade, so a clean install.
I would have agreed with you until I hit Arch and Nix (for different reasons).
Even back in my windows days, I would say wiping the OS and starting fresh about once a year was fairly common, and often avoided a lot of pitfalls.
But... I've been running about 8 Arch machines at home over the last 5 years (6 servers, one desktop, one laptop), and mostly don't feel the need to wipe them.
There's a little bit of cruft, but it's usually related to me doing things, and not the OS itself. So the system still feels stable and solid.
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Personally - I think for Arch, it's a combination of "Not changing upstream" and "upgrading constantly" so that they don't have a lot of custom cruft to start with, and they have to deal with the upgrade process all the time, so it's not some "huge lift" that happens once every 2 years.
Nix has a similar free feel, but it's not so much that upgrades are painless (they aren't), it's more that "wiping" the machine takes a different tone when you basically wipe the machine with every config change, and reverts are simple and easy.
I rather use a system where I can update and if something breaks, know what broke and how to fix it, you only get that with Linux, if you are interested in learning how
Despite the article I've always found the Ubuntu upgrade process to be pretty painless. I actually did a minor upgrade this afternoon on my personal laptop from 22.04 to 22.04.1 without issue.
But I agree with the article that snaps are infuriating and next time I replace my laptop I'll be surveying the field to choose a replacement for Ubuntu.
