I would say that your experience isn't typical. OpenBSD has an excellent reputation of Thinkpads.
I have no interest in openbsd any more. Debian is significantly better in every way except for "code correctness" and philosophical license issues which are frankly irrelevant to the end user.
I gave up and bought a mac which is a certified unix and apple pays people to actually work on the non-glamorous bits. My laptop lasts nearly all day and everything works. The UX for a laptop user is orders of magnitude better in every single way.
OpenBSD is a great idea but it's a terrible laptop OS.