My first was Mint but i installed (as second boot) Open Suse to try it out, sticked with mint for the most part but i and some friends also run a custom Distro for a Server (its Debian Based)
Mint is just a Workhorse that never failed me. And once you settled you won't adapt to something different easily.
Honestly, I'm starting to appreciate the "Just works" mentality a little more as I start to shy away from ricing. I'm going to stick with non-systemd distributions, but my DE will likely be cinnamon next, since it's easy to use and I don't care about making it look pretty.
I feel Void + a simple DE is an amazing combination for people who want to get work done without paying too much of attention to the OS, except the part of the OS they are using actively (tooling + applications)
I started my whole Linux experience with Ubuntu 6.10. IIRC Compiz Fusion or Beryl was the shit back then with the 3D cube effect and the windows going off in flames when you close something.