My Linux skills have improved and I have really enjoyed using Linux as my desktop and dev environment since learning by using Arch.
Ubuntu tends to be recommended for novices coming from Windows or Mac who are also unsure of the command line. My brother installed it after he purchased a cheap laptop. He came from Mac OS X and fell in love. After learning more, he installed Mint and really enjoys it. He is programming now! Obviously Ubuntu is for advanced users also. It just so happens that it is accessible to beginners as well which is great!
When switching distros, say from Debian to Arch, you should embrace the idea that fundamentals are completely different. Package management, for instance, must be re-learned. And the way daemons and modules are initialized and configured is different and plenty of other things! You are going to lose context and that can be the most frustrating part of switching. If you can overcome that and succeed at the new tools, you will have gained more skills.
The great thing about Linux is that it is free software. I love to experiment with Virtualbox and lots of distros for fun. I would encourage you to try a few, a couple non debian based, and see if you enjoy them more.