I've long avoided "switchable graphics", for this reason. The complexity breeds issues. Be happy with just intel graphics, or go for an AMD/radeon, to improve your chances of not running into bugs/incompatibilities. Modern graphics are just such a monster of complexity, change, variety, secrecy, etc.

(I'm going to venture a guess that the "kernel update [can] render the system unbootable" is due to nvidia binary-blob driver needing some glue code to both update and recompile for new kernel versions ... it can work fine, usually, but for best experience, skip the hassle of nvidia on linux, or keep it as simple and vanilla as possible with a distro that takes care of it for you I guess.)