I would avoid running LTS unless you really need the stability. Otherwise, having the latest applications (and utilities like git) is going to be difficult.
I'm on 16.04 and I have no problems with that. I use the repositories of the developers, so I get the latest versions. I use Canonical's repositories for the OS and the software I don't really care much about. I had no problems with this approach (LibreOffice, PostgreSQL, etc). I occasionally run some software in a docker container to get the latest version, or to run multiple versions of the same server application (example: I've got two Redis for two different projects). Asdf [1] can manage multiple PostgreSQL versions (and several languages).
The real advantage of staying on a LTS has been no big updates and no changes in the GUI. I'm on Gnome Flashback which I tweaked to be as closed as possible to Gnome 2. It seems that Gnome Shell eventually got enough extensions to also make it look like Gnome 2. I'll give it a try again after those memory leaks will go away. I can probably stick to 16.04 for another year before developers start skipping it in their builds.
Edit: I checked and I have git 2.17.0, which is the latest version. I keep it up to date with ppa.launchpad.net/git-core/ppa/ubuntu
I'll definitely look into Gnome Flashback. I'm not all that happy with Gnome 3. It often fails to restore my windows when attaching an external monitor at work, and the caffeine extension for keeping the display on during presentaitons etc somehow managed to lock up Gnome entirely when suspending. A sign of a unhealthy plug-in architecture, maybe...
It is worth noting Ubuntu comes with snap and flatpack support since latest two releases, and it works flawlessly for most of GUI applications. Sadly there isn't many CLI tools available to download like aforementioned git or zsh.
On newer laptops, disk space is at something of a premium (SSDs are expensive, so the disk size got smaller again), so Snap / Flatpak / Appimage are a bit of an issue.
I'd argue that's less of an issue these days. Hopping between LTS releases seems to be the most productive and free from issue way of working, at least for me.
The main thing is latest browser versions and they still ship with the LTS release.
There's an ppa for the latest emacs and fish shell anyway. Maybe I can find a ppa for git. My other editor, IntelliJ, updates itself. Spotify also has its own repo.
When using core tools (like git) in a large company, there is zero chance of everyone having the latest version. Nobody builds anything assuming you have the latest version and so everyone can keep working. We can't even rely on everyone having access to worktrees!
The stability of LTS far, far outweighs every new feature I've found so far. It's a no-brainer when you are trying to get stuff actually done and don't appreciate having to regularly waste cycles on your toolbox.
The only reason why i would NOT run the LTS, is if i need some very new and fancy kernel version. However, even then they normally get backported into LTS, but sometimes that wait can leave you without something critical (like wifi or hibernation / sleep support) for months. There is always the option of recompiling the kernel from LTS to support the driver you want, but at that point, i would just go with the latest release.
The real advantage of staying on a LTS has been no big updates and no changes in the GUI. I'm on Gnome Flashback which I tweaked to be as closed as possible to Gnome 2. It seems that Gnome Shell eventually got enough extensions to also make it look like Gnome 2. I'll give it a try again after those memory leaks will go away. I can probably stick to 16.04 for another year before developers start skipping it in their builds.
Edit: I checked and I have git 2.17.0, which is the latest version. I keep it up to date with ppa.launchpad.net/git-core/ppa/ubuntu
[1] https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf