1.2GB or more of memory usage at idle when most of the KDE distros I tried, even the Ubuntu based ones like Kubuntu, go around 700MB. Plus it just feels sluggish and slow on not so modern machines.
What exactly is Popos delivering more than the likes of Kubuntu or Nobara for the near double extra resources used?
Isn't this irrelevant nowadays? Don't the OS's consume/free memory dynamically, and idle usage is meaningless?
Sure, PopOS isn't the best choice for your Raspberry Pi, but we are talking about desktop computing, where 1.2GB of RAM is nothing.
At that scale the difference 500MB to 1GB RAM wasted by your DE could mean a few extra apps or browser tabs you can run before you hit the swap meaning a great usability boost.
Secondly, you haven't answered my question on what Popos does extra to justify the extra resource usage, you only justified the resources waste with the argument that 'RAM is cheap'.
You can use Snaps and Flatpak if you want.
it's a bunch of effort though, both to learn how everything works and to set up all the things you're usually just used to being there by default. but once it's done you'll be able to fix any issue that pops up, because you actually KNOW what's on your system, as opposed to it being a massive collection of things you have no idea about.
*something like gentoo might be better but... compiling a browser takes ages and i recommend having an up to date browser, so you'll spend tons of time on that.
There are 100 distros, each with pros and cons, many far lighter than Manjaro.