"Frequent updates" sounds to me like "breaks frequently".

I'm using an Intel card, which is still seeing problems fixed with every update. But I've been on the road of bleeding edge before and it's been one messy problem after another.

If I can strike a balance between latest and stable, at the cost of a slightly slower update speed, I'd prefer that.

For gaming, I don’t really understand why anyone would prefer slower update cycles since there are frequent updates that fix compatibility or increase performance.

Which game uses host system libraries? I think you have a wrong impression how things work in Linux gaming outside of Tux Kart these days. Valve maintains their own set of Linux containers called Steam Linux Runtimes and their entire point is to be relatively slow moving. Just have a look at all the package dates at https://repo.steampowered.com/steamrt4/images/latest-public-stable/sources/

On top of that, almost every game is a proprietary Windows application. So it runs on top of Proton which sits on top of the latest Steam Linux Runtime.

It's similar with FOSS games where the foremost distribution outlet is Flathub and software published there relies on Flatpak Runtimes which are also relatively slow moving.

CachyOS is apparently “optimized” for gaming performance—I don’t pretend to know what that means or how much of an impact it has.

Barely any unless you're installing FOSS games from their own repository for the reasons I outlined initially.

I’m super impressed with how well everything just works

And that's what's important.

Any chance, have you ever used Garuda? I'm curious how CachyOS compares on the "ease of use" front. I've been on Garuda for like 3 or 4 years now as it is the only one (that I tried) that I've had "just work" for everything out of the box. My laptop had a lot of trouble with Bazzite and the nvidia drivers, but again, I don't have to do anything under Garuda besides install it, periodically run updates, and it plays games just fine with no headaches. I'm not a huge fan of the decoration choices in Garuda, and some of the stuff you mentioned like Winboat and Gaming one-click installs sound amazingly helpful... but everything is working right now so there's a hurdle to changing, lol.