pulseaudio works in Gentoo now, and you can even run it without switching to systemd (which Gentoo also supports if you're into that). Gentoo also has a new sound server called pipewire that is pulseaudio compatible so that's an option also.

(and agreed with all of your other points, and there's still something to be said for the push button utility of ubuntu, etc; to your point, a lot of infosec people, including at large enterprises, prefer gentoo.. I know many of them and am one myself.)