I tried to install a package and apt started uninstalling my desktop. Maybe if I didn't panic and hit Ctrl-C I would have gotten all the packages it was removing replaced with shiny new ones? I doubt it somehow.
All the customization you can do is neat, but after that I was pretty much done with fiddling with my OS and finding FOSS versions of stuff I was already used to and wanted something that would just work. These days I have a small form factor PC with Mint that I run some server apps on, but I'm holding off on making it my daily driver again until Microsoft really puts the screws on the consumer.
That seemed to be a major bug in POP_OS at one point, the youtuber Linus Tech Tips fell victim to it while trying it and it ended up being patched VERY fast
I'll add one bit of info from me. I've installed aptitude on Mint, as it was supposedly the best package dependency conflict resolver. I don't remember what conflict I had, but when I launched aptitude to fix that broken package, it begun to uninstall every package. After reinstall, I've been using Mint as computer for modifying bootloaders in phones, and some minor works, returning to modified windows 10.
Tbf I've had a similar thing happen like 6 years ago. I've been using Linux still but at the time I didn't have much going on that system outside of a few games so it just turned into a long reinstall weekend. I forget exactly what happened but I also had another issue where I tried to install KDE Plasma desktop environment and it completely nuked my system. Idk if it was a user error or what.
I'm still a Linux fanboy but it's not without its own set of issues. I try to be a bit more careful in the terminal after all that and I haven't had any major issues since. I do need to do a fresh install sometime in the near future though.