You actually understate your case. I agree with you and do not fault you... I am just saying that these simple words do not properly convey what a truly massive problem this is.
And I cannot think of any better way of conveying it.
Sometimes, I wonder if Star Trek got it right and we need to just get rid of the concept of Money altogether. Humans just cannot grasp the concept of letting go of greed.
And greed corrupts almost everything we ever try to do.
Agree... I just feel like I keep repeating myself when this topic comes up so I like to keep it short 
How many Camels buys you a top spec gaming laptop these days?
That's still money.
Well the problem i have to much technology old and new and diffrents newer technology have a more junky stuff and more complicated. I remember when old things nobody checked your personality with email, 2FA, your account with mobile to recognize you. Old time you don't need to be register starter pack sim card. Now everywhere where i using anything i need e-mail,password and mobile also internet. Do you know when travelling with electric a car i need download 8 application because some not working and i must register my credit card on that all app. This is also problem when you "cannot out loading snake"from your a car and then you must caling to service. Diffrent countries and diffrents a rules. The normal journey took me twice hours to be in a place.
I don't understable in all that mobiles some app what are installed and i never used some tiktok,instagram,twitter etc.
I cannot choice what i want. All time some commercial stuff where i can lost my time.
Besides i saw on internet are more dumb things where is more dumber then people gived more likes and subscribes.
I want simple life without that all bloat. Windows 7 was the last version without bloat and that why i cut some things what i used in windows "Gates" and start used linux, more simple, nothing to complain.
Facepalm. As soon as I typed "buys" I thought...Hmmm...someone is going to pick me up for alternative currency to crypto.
Its balance (like most things).
I was reading a post on reddit and I think it made my point perfectly
Pick the distro which is right for you. I actually game in Windows mostly but I agree with the post - if gaming, then non LTS is the way to go
Most updates do not contain "new Enhancements."
Many of the "updated" packages included in Flatpak are the same package on LTS, just formatted for use with gtk4.
Often, placebo effect seems to apply among users. How do I know this?
I create packages.
Gunning for the "latest" with rolling release is a great way to experience every new crash, bug and regression. Usually the graphics are the first to experience it.
Not exactly the best thing for gamers...
If Gaming, non-LTS is only the way to go if you literally rush out and buy the latest hardware as soon as it is released. And yes, I can see some gamers that have more money than busy-time being able to do that. But the vast majority cannot do that.
When giving advice, members need to check what hardware the user has and assist them in getting the best drivers for it. Not make broad general sweeping statements lazily.
You say
'I can see some gamers that have more money than busy-time being able to do that'
and in the same paragraph ' Not make broad general sweeping statements lazily'.
Mesa
https://docs.mesa3d.org/relnotes/23.1.7.html
Latest Mesa version in Zorin is 21.2.6 dated Nov 2021. There have been c. 40 versions since then, with the latest being released September 2023. Literally 100s of bug fixes. These can sometimes provide significant improvements.
Halo Infinite couldn't even run on standard amdvlk drivers, so Mesa is/was the only option. That might have changed now but was the case for a long time. Valve/Steam are continuously developing Mesa/RADV drivers, amdvlk aren't as good
With this feature, the shader stutter you would usually see before it's built up in a game should be vastly reduced and so overall we should see smoother gaming performance on Linux with AMD GPUs thanks to this.
'non-LTS is only the way to go if you literally rush out and buy the latest hardware as soon as it is released.'
There are fixes and improvements for my 6700 which was released June 2021 - Hardly 'rushing out to buy latest hardware as soon as its released'
For some enlightenment
there are probably 3 things that make the biggest difference.
Desktop Enviroments (Cinnamon is very bad at gaming for example)
Kernel versions (newer is better)
Driver versions (Mesa / nVidia / AMDVLK / etc, newer is better)
Like I said its a balance, whatever works for you. Zorin may not the best Linux gaming experience, especially on AMD GPUs.
I do agree making broad sweeping statements is lazy, its also condescending
Ok. Then with AMD GPUs what is your advice?
I am curious because I have amd.
Newer if you saying then rolling release distributions?
Its not always better and even if it is, how much ? Leaving 5fps on the table because of poor linux setup might not be worth the hassle of changing but what if the difference was 20fps ? You'd have to find some benchmarks
Good explainer
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/u38tbz/if_the_amd_driver_is_bundled_with_the_kernel_what/
I don't know how much benefit comes from updating Mesa and how much from a newer Kernel.
I personally would NOT update kernel in Zorin, I think most wouldn't.
I have a 6700XT but I prefer to game on Windows (dual boot) so its not really important for me. If I were gaming on Linux only, I'd pick the right combination for me; best stability and performance considering Kernel , driver and desktop environment.
I playing maybe some a two a games and it working on Zorin 16.
I have a 6600 and if i need using windows i can go to my old pc with W10
The most common problem is the corporation selling all time new cpu processors,motherboard and gpu, where the hardware not always is wrote correctly or have plenty bugs.
It is better?
The games some better working with amd or nvidia it depends what type code it have wrote.
For me personally, the best idea is tested linux distribution if all things what I using working on them and customization suit for me then why changing operating system.
I preffer something near W7
The new W10 and W11 is more with apps what i don't using to much also many restriction where user cannot taken because operating system told you: " You cannot do that".
I don't know when will be soon new version Zorin to again taking fresh installation to not get conflict packages with another software.
Isn't we do that all time with windows backup data and doing fresh installation?
My fps was 144 because my monitor settings is more productivity to my gpu and taken higher temperature.
The second is bottleneck where my cpu is faster but "sending information" from cpu to gpu is best performance in 1920x1080 not 2560X1440 then i get bottleneck higher.
If we wondering also security leaked with intel cpu and graphic card where amd not fixed issues they products.
I remember one a man sayed the components are very high precise technology but software and hardware for them can gived headeach.
I remember when Zorin out for my old PC working flawnessy,stable without complain.
So I want check if Zorin will be working better with my new PC,because it is intuitive for a novice user and I mostly using Zorin from 8 version. I know mostly where i must click something or find.
The third situation is many distributions are like "religions".
When you start talking and meeting forum with some manjaro where you can talking about manjaro and another distributions are "evil".
I respect Zorin because i believe this is brothers ZORIN passion and what they doing is precise.
Example if you live at home - everytime you changing something or want something new all time?
Zorin is just like that home where everything have some place.
Of course we can sayed we have some a "weather" ( I mean big boys canonical,rhel etc) where trying damaged your house and then you need fix your home.
Check example a apple unix distribution, are they update everytime and changing all time example desktop and software?
Yes when comes a new product but for old products they have long time support.
On win10 old pc when my amd R9 390 R.I.P I bought cheapest gpu nvidia GT 1030 2GB and people don't believe the games like Path of Exile or Death Stranding Hideo Kojima working perfectly.
Stop believe the new product is still better. Sometimes for me they changing a design product and numbers with models and price. ( i mean audiophile example, where i have experiences).
This is fair, I agree that in some cases, newer is needed. In many cases, upgrades are due to bug fixes and improvements.
But we cannot assume that a newer release automatically means "better" or even "bugfixed."
And... AMD is... AMD. Heh.
I can make my point here:
The Newer 535 driver has given more users more problems than the 525. In fact on my 3060, the 535 breaks key things. It won't read wattage at all nor properly adjust fan speed. Newer wasn't better. On gaming nor on daily use.
Not at all. The kernel that supplies the drivers that work for your hardware is better. The 6.5 kernel broke my graphics badly (Intel).
I rolled my kernel back due to the regression in 6.5
Reading forward before I send this post, I see you nailed this:
Exactly.
When i support and complain to NVIDIA my graphic card not working with newer drivers, they answear install older. The same AMD know about issue hardware what they have and still not fixed. For them is better produce a new product and selling not fixed gpu card what working many years. This is ping pong game. Devs checking problems and sayed what not working to commercial ( correct word?) and they doing nothing. Then don't blame linux operating system or drivers on linux what working sometimes better - besides you can seeing all code.
Sorry, I didn't mean smaller than Zorin. I meant smaller in general. And not something as huge as Ubuntu.
I get your point that Mint and MX are bigger than Zorin.
Well the problem when you sayed before is all "forks" - coming from debian and ubuntu.
Example if I buying newest PC with newest components.
The drivers don't exist in linux world.
Now the kernel coming 6.6 version.
The same what i sayed before amd,nvidia,intel they don't want fixed bugs or problems software harrdware.
They interesting selling the same things with diffrents specifications,name,numbers and price.
Here you have example a radio it changed before and now and where are diffrrents in sound?
The radio still have the same function menu only changed design.
This could help which one is more trust or products?
Well all that corporation selling our private data.
Isn't big elephant facebook was a movie about he selling our data and google what stealing patent sonos.
They are greed a money.
The procent issue is very low and don't have realistic.
The same like a distrowatch.
Security not exist this ages.
Another big problem with Zorin using old Ubuntu LTS bases is that some packages that are critical to hardware support are not being updated.
For example: My new motherboard has a Realtek ALC4080 audio chip, for which microphones do not work at all unless the alsa-ucm-conf package is upgraded to at least version 1.2.9. But in the Ubuntu 20.04 repositories, only version 1.2.2 is available, which is over 3 years old by now (though Ubuntu patched in support for a select few newer audio chips since then).
Even if Zorin 17 moves to Ubuntu 22.04, alsa-ucm-conf will only be upgraded to version 1.2.6.3, which is almost 2 years old already, and thus still missing support for my motherboard and many others.
Only from Ubuntu 23.10 will a new enough version of alsa-ucm-conf be available. But I am assuming that Zorin 17 will not be based on a non-LTS version of Ubuntu, so I will likely have to wait until the release of Ubuntu 24.04 + the delay until the next version of Zorin after then, meaning sometime in 2025, before I can use a microphone with my new computer 
.
I am also starting to run into other problems that I also suspect are caused by the lack of package updates. For example, the latest version of Valve's Proton does not work in Zorin 16, but works fine in distros with newer packages.
So while I love almost everything about Zorin, the old package base is becoming a dealbreaker for me 
From everything that you say, it seems that the hardware you are describing is so very new, that only the very latest releases have any support at all.
I do not think that this really makes a strong argument against using a Long Term Support release that covers the vast majority of users.
Yeah, the motherboard is a somewhat new AM5 one from MSI, released about a year ago I believe. Support for it was added to the alsa-ucm-conf 1.2.9 release back on May 4th this year. Many other distros have shipped this version already (Fedora, Gentoo, Manjaro Stable, openSUSE Tumbleweed and Arch to mention some).
The system requirements page for Zorin only lists "minimum hardware specifications", and no maximum ones. It even says "Designed for modern computers", so I think it is fair enough to point out that the choice of old Ubuntu base is causing problems in this area. People buy new computers all the time, so I think it is very relevant for an operating system like Zorin to consider how to ensure that users are able to use Zorin on their new computers, instead of them having to switch to another OS because of lack of hardware support.
