Maybe what I’m looking for is the holy grail, but what do you guys suggest as a Distro with a good balance between stability and up-to-date packages?
By definition that’s impossible, stable means packages don’t get updated, so their version is stable. If you meant stability outside of the Linux world, as in “doesn’t break” then most rolling release would fit, personally I use Manjaro, and have used Arch and Gentoo in the past, Tumbleweed is also a good option that others have recommended.