maybe reword the title, as this will inevitably lead to partisan turf wars in the vein of my-distro-can-beat-up-yalls-distro and such.

as to your thesis, yes, mint and ubuntu are important and needed as beginner-friendly it-just-works solutions that have things in place (like the mentioned driver manager) that are sorely needed for noobs. once they learn what’s what they are free to wander farther, as there’s essentially zero switching costs.

you’ll find low sympathy from experienced users as they can’t relate to people who are so much below their expertise level. case in point, a buncha people already mentioning package managers, ignoring the idea that a noob doesn’t know what that is.