You are right, I wanted to do some nodejs and realized that the package in the repo was Node version 12.something while latest node is version 20.something.

Also they still ship Python 3.10 which is ancient technology by today’s standard, luckily nothing major is added between 3.10 and 3.12

Their mirrors are worst, ALL OF SELECTABLE OPTIONS FROM MIRROR SELECTOR which shows up at 47 KB/sec which just hurts your area spanning from asshole to large intestines.

I use bridgetide linux mint mirror btw

So why am I not switching?

Here is why: Linux mint is based on Ubuntu meaning that you can add Ubuntu repos or ppas or whatever they need directly into Linux Mint and dont have to worry about it breaking.

Say that you need to have some software for a reason and you cannot find one in Flatpak or an appimage, etc. You will be happy to realize that many of these software are built for Ubuntu and provide their deb package with own repo with updates.

I run Linux Mint 21.3 and that means I can just use a program built for Ubuntu Jammy as Linux Mint Virginia is based on Ubuntu Jammy. If I need to install something out of repo, I can just go and install Ubuntu jammy deb package and it will work normally.