@xfce4me
There’s something that intrigues you about Antergos, so I’m wondering what?
You’ve got a point that Antergos doesn’t offer an out of the box experience, but it isn’t a drop in the wild either. You already did some research on Linux distro’s and even played with some, so what is it exactly you’re looking for? If you’re looking for a lightweight DE, XFCE is a good one to start with and all DE’s perform less resource heavy under Arch. That’s my experience and I’ve been distrohopping in the past like a bunny.
Antergos offers you the necessary basics to start with (browser, office app, etc.) When you’re overwhelmed to use the terminal, there’s Pamac that makes it a bit easier to install things. When I started almost two years ago, I registered months later on the forum, I only knew how to open the terminal and that’s it. My first 6 months I ran the system by doing updates and installing with Pamac, without any problems and if there were ones, then the forum is a great resource to troubleshoot and there’s always someone to help you out over here.
If your hardware allows it, I recommend to start with Gnome, because this is the DE that Antergos offers you with the most apps on board and already looks slick and modern out of the box.
Just give it a try and maybe you’re like me and discover how much Antergos has to offer and to learn about, if you have a question just ask over here (not only problems, but also ask for advise in app choice for instance) this forum is really friendly.
With Antergos on your machine you’ll probably never distrohop again.