> With Arch do you feel you have a better sense of why things break when they do?
Yes
Yes
There was an unofficial motto to that effect at one time.
Your system might have also broken because you didn't read the RSS feed, which warns of potentially breaking changes.
When in doubt, blame yourself. Or Alan.
[1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=5051... (hit this myself a couple days ago)