So, as a quick update, it turns out Qubes wasn't all I expected or wanted it to be. For instance, while I could *in theory* do gaming, in practice it'd be very difficult. The Windows VM idea? Yeah, hope you like gaming sans audio. And there's a lot of inconveniences associated (e.g. interVM file copy/clipboard). So, I've gone back to Arch. On the bright side, going back was actually easier than expected. Turns out copying all the dot files backs restored everything as it was.
Seriously, I opened up Pale Moon and was literally still logged in to everything. I reinstalled steam and it opened up as if nothing happened. I knew dot files did a lot but damn. I expected to have to do a lot of setting stuff back up.
A good reminder I should probably go wipe that external hard drive all that stuff was backed up to
As for Qubes, as much as I love the concept, it's just not right for me right now. I could see myself using it on, say, a work laptop, but for my primary machine, it just doesn't do what I want a primary OS to do.