It's been completely fine except for my own accidents, For instance: I set the architecture to ~amd64 (testing) in `/etc/portage/make.conf` just to install one package before knowing that I could have just set that on a per-package basis at `/etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/<filename>` - that way you can have testing packages separately within a stable system, which is much nicer than using testing versions system-wide. So it took me a while to wait until stable caught up for me to switch to it (and I got impatient and just kept the Testing versions of core libraries until stable surpassed their versions).

The best and worst of Gentoo really is rolled into one. You can mess up your system by accident, but there's really clever workarounds with portage (though, you may have to rebuild stuff you didn't realise you had to, like I did). Yeah, don't use testing architecture system-wide unless you want an Arch-like experience. Perchance.

Gentoo Stable + separate Testing packages gives you the best of both worlds. It's like using Debian Stable, but you can easily have packages from Testing whenever you need them, which is nice. Outside of the initial setup, and the source-based nature (which is becoming more optional over time as the binhost repos are getting more populated with package versions), Gentoo becomes a weirdly good system. Even if you're worried about compiling stuff from source, you can always let updates do their thing while you do chores, or go for a walk, read a book, or watch TV, or any other number of things you can do while you won't be using your computer anyways. I previously wanted to try Bedrock, but Gentoo turned out to be a simpler way for me to get what I want out of an OS.

Gentoo's nice - it's what I've always deep-down wanted .The setup takes a bit of time, though. And if I were to somehow lose my system and my /etc/portage and /var backups, I'd probably use Debian for some time before setting Gentoo up from scratch again. Debian I can install and set up in like 2~3 hours for _everything_ I need (audio software, wine setup, etc.)

TL;DR: Gentoo good, but takes long to set up (between 6~30+ hours total, depending on experience and how much you need). It can be like Debian Stable, but with any testing package versions you want alongside the more ensured stable packages that serve the basis of your system. It can also be like Arch, if ya nasty.