[zepearl]

Same opinion, I would say "it depends".

Personally I like Gentoo on the desktop especially in relation to when I code (e.g. very handy to be able to easily switch SW-versions of some packages while always using the same repository). I use it as well on some servers as root OS (I mean the one that runs mainly just the hypervisor), if they have special needs (e.g. if for some reason I want/have to use a recent version of some SW, e.g. ZFS, Kernel, firewall, QEMU, etc...).

On the other hand for VMs I usually just use Debian or Mint, as maintenance/upgrade effort is a lot lower & quicker. In some cases I still have to use PPAs but they're usually exceptions (e.g. Postgres 13 & kernel 5.10 & Clickhouse for Debian 10).