Not meant as a jab at Ubuntu, but I don't think people choose Ubuntu for engineering rigor. If you want something which is dull, predictable and known for their rigor OpenBSD, illumos, FreeBSD, etc. seem like more likely choices.
If you have a problem with them, 20 other people have had that same problem before you did, two of them have posted on Stackoverflow and one wrote a blog post.
OpenBSD and Illumos may be cool, but you really need to know what you're doing to use them.
That said, the underlying structure is still Ubuntu centered. I also like Ubuntu server, even through I don't use snaps, mostly because the install pre-configures most of the initial changes I make to debian anyway. Sudo is configured, you get an option to import your public key and preconfigure non-pwd ssh, etc. I mostly install ufw and Docker and almost everything I run goes under Docker in practice.