While we’re at it, what does the hive mind think I should be using instead for turning old trash PCs into shitty servers?

Void. The speed difference is unmeasurable, especially when using old equipment. Plus it still supports x86. If you're used to the terminal, you won't notice a difference, trust me... except a lot more speed and less RAM usage.

The only thing Lemmy has taught me so far is that Ubuntu sucks and the only truly honorable choice is to quit my job and stop speaking to my family so that I can devote my life to installing drivers on unstable Arch.

Everything works pretty much out of the box in Void. Hardware doesn't work? Try installing some of the firmware binary blobs (firmware-intel, firmware-broadcom, etc.). Check the hardware manufacturer and model with lspci or lsusb (depending on how the hardware is connected to the PC). 99% of the time, the thing works after firmware packages are installed 👍.

Also, I’m supposed to buy some thigh-high stockings and learn to tuck apparently?

No, just be open minded to new things and have a reddit account for asking questions/getting support... cuz the Void team didn't join the protest and their subreddit is still the official help forum for Void.