[harpratap]

> are there people who find vanilla/handcrafted k8s okay?

Yes, we do.

> Is there an "Arch K8s" distro?

Kubernetes the hard way is pretty much Arch

> is there an Ubuntu of k8s (successfully hides away the details and produces a clean working system that never requires a user to leave the comfort of the GUI)?

Kubespray etc.

> so this is a genuine question from someone who'd like to get into k8s but can't see which option is sane.

It completely depends on how much money your company is willing to spend on it. The larger the organization, the more it makes sense to go for "the Arch way". If you are a tiny start-up with single digit Devops folks, stick to managed offerings like GKE.