I use Arch also, as a desktop. I like:

  * Rolling releases which mostly doesn't break things
  * Solid package management
  * Doesn't handhold too much, while still not being too much of a pain to get a desktop going
  * Doesn't start services because you install them (Debian/Ubuntu)
  * Doesn't try and force snaps and an essentially proprietary store on you (Ubuntu)
  * Still popular enough to have momentum behind it (problems are Google-able)

I don't really like:

  * systemd. It's almost a necessary evil at this point, but not quite

I also use Alpine on my personal server. The package manager is blazing fast, and it uses OpenRC, which I prefer over systemd. I know the musl memory allocator isn't all the fast, which bothers me, but not enough to rebuild it with a different distro. busybox is also a bit bothersome sometimes (/etc/network/interfaces syntax is a bit limited, for example).