Mate, under Mint started to get wonky. The rumor I was told was that the head of Mint and the head of MATE quit talking to each other, and the lack of collaboration is showing.

For me, the update manager window would not display from the tray icon. If there was a notification, I had to open Synaptic from the menu, then update. With enough updates, that gets to be a hassle. I tried changing windows managers, etc, but that just made more problems.

I checked out Cinnamon, but I didn't like it. It felt like someone didn't pay attention to how best to use my screen space, and modifications weren't forthcoming from my search results. So I went distro hunting and took shots at Manjaro, Arc, MX, and a couple others.

MX didn't have installation issues, and let me configure the UI to my liking. I was even able to get scrollbars! Now if UI designers will quit customizing every scrollbar they can find, I'll be in good shape! :D