I've been using arch for about 3 years and I think that things break just as often (actually, probably more often) and you're generally not left with a better sense of what the root cause is. Sure, you have less software installed, but you're also usually running bleeding-edge versions of everything and things are noticeably less stable.

I do think that from an educational standpoint, arch linux is a good OS to use, as you will probably get a lot more comfortable with the linux environment. This is largely out of necessity as you will spend a great deal of time setting up and fixing your system.

If you have the time to debug the various components of your system, it can be quite fun and educational to use, but if you're interested in getting work done I cannot recommend arch linux at all.