TBH every linux disto will sometimes leave the happy path. The difference between nixos and basically all other distros is that all other distros at least do most thing somewhat in the same way. So even an install for example for Ubuntu can relatively easily be translated to Arch. But that's unfortunately not the case with nixos. It's just too different. So once you are off the happy path you sometimes need real skill in nix to even do some, at first glance, simple things.