Debian testing is on 5.6 right now. If you can handle a high update volume and are comfortable managing occasional packaging issues, it’s a rather nice “not arch but newish” experience.
Agreed. I was following Debian mainline releases but grew tired of out of date packages and putting my hopes and dreams into *-backports. After migrating to testing, it's been smooth sailing for well over a year and I've grown to appreciate a rolling release cycle.