Well, that may be the case, but you made the claim that using a beginner-friendly distro solves all problems and I gave an anecdotal example of that not being the case. Macbooks have a substantial markt share, like it or not, and are subject to planned hardware obsolescense, so people will try to install Linux at some point.
Besides of all, this was not purely a hardware issue. Else, no configuration would have worked out. There were differences in the default configs of the distributions that caused this erratic behavior and it was not just a pulseaudio/pipewire thing.
At least for Linux-Reaper:
Use Jack. Install the “Pulse Jack Module”, route Pulseaudio through Jack to simultaneously connect Reaper and everything else to the Jack System out. Always autostart Jack and use the Pulse Module “autoconnect” parameter as a startup script (QJackCtl helps here).
Should fix 1-3, 4 I’m not sure.