So it wouldn't be incorrect to refer to Arch and Arch based distros as 'well, if you want to have fun with a broken system, otherwise avoid', just so it could be mentioned in a succinct way when talking about what distros one could try.
No, I don't think that's a fair way to put it. People regularly report having quite old Arch installs without stability issues. And people also regularly advice Linux newcomers not to pick Arch.
If you check their news section, it's a reasonable number of notes, 13 for last year. I think it's fair to say it seems to work well if you are willing to follow their procedure and already know what you're doing.