I used gentoo from the 00s until I wanna say about two years ago, it let me sidestep a lot of teething issues linux software used to have and then it was just a habit. it was my first linux distribution after others failed to install (some IDE controller issue, yes it was that long ago) and I could only finish the install with the amazing gentoo install handbook that explained everything up to and including compiling a custom kernel for your hardware. (which helped me fix the issue)
With the years it got more and more clear that not all ebuild maintainers understood the packages they maintain anymore (needless, nonsensical dependencies) and the gentoo project fell into this weird vibe where things that worked fine the way they were were changed for the sake of change itself with often poor results, needlessly complicating things. The underlying issue here was, and that's my subjective opinion, that the maintainers didn't really understand Linux userland well anymore but rather tried to project and enforce the way they think a linux system should work. It was an uphill battle to revert stupid changes from upstream locally and while it was cool that gentoo lets you do that rather easily, it felt like a waste of time. I moved on to alpine which just lets you update your binary packages in peace without constantly trying to molest your configuration, which is a rare thing with most distributions.
I never did excessive tinkering to my systems when it didn't come to my workflow and customatization and I'd say that my gentoo system was always very low maintenance until up and about towards the end and the questionable tinkering upstream. if you feel it's constant work to keep your system running the way you want, there is something fundamentally wrong. My linux system always kinda just is. True changes are rare and the chance of an update breaking everything pretty much zero. It's good to know how it all, at least in principle, works. That's why I stick to simple software, something I learned the value of through gentoo.