I am a Linux noobie and have only used Mint for around six months now. While I have definitely learned a lot, I don’t have the time to always be doing crazy power user stuff and just want something that works out of the box. While I love Mint, I want to try out other decently easy to use distros as well, specifically not based on Ubuntu, so no Pop OS. Is Manjaro a possibly good distro for me to check out?
By far the number one reason to use Arch or an Arch derivative is the AUR. Saying that you have learned the hard way not to use the AUR on Manjaro is saying that Manjaro is not delivering on its promises. I agree with you btw, using the AUR on Manjaro is not safe as Manjaro packages are out of sync with Arch and the AUR was designed for Arch packages.
EndevourOS provides most of the same advantages as Manjaro but is 100% AUR compatible as ( one installed ) EndevourOS is really just Arch.
If you do not like command-line package management, check out pacseek.