CTKArch

I've used Arch a few times a few years back. I loved it except for having to fix things after updates. I understand Arch is bleeding edge and all that, but I do get tired of fixing things. I saw in one of the threads something about making sure a kernel is stable before it's released. To cut to the chase, should I expect to still have to fix things after updates or are things screened a bit more thoroughly than in the past?

The need to fix things entirely depends on… whether you use them.
So, basically, what you are talking about there, depends on your setup. How you configured what you've installed on your archlinux install.
No offense intended, but if you had to fix things all the time, it means that you weren't doing it right.

With ctkarch, I'm trying very hard to have a stable setup that updates won't break.
v0.7 still isn't broken by any update, so this looks encouraging. (v0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 were broken by updates not so long after the release)

Plus, I'm maintaining a page to accompany non-straightforward updates: ctkarch.org/news/upgrade (and associated RSS feed: ctkarch.org/news/upgrade/rss.php)

All installable versions of ctkarch are still supported, see ctkarch.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5&t_id=17
Updates did break versions prior to 0.7, but I've always provided the necessary fixes.

Now, the question I can't answer is: will an update break v0.7 in the future?
Its configuration has held updates for almost 6 months now, and I don't anticipate any breakage so far.

Wait and see. But compliance to standards and "good use" (which implies knowing how and what things were designed for) may ultimately lead to a stable setup that will eat updates without breakages.
At least I hope it will. And I'm trying to prove it.

And finally, remember that you can choose not to update your archlinux install. In ctkarch, this is by default. (frozen mirror, see the documentation, part Installation)

My "toys" never needed fixing. What normally ended up broken was Arch itself. Loss of usb ports, no mouse, unable to log in. I wasn't the only one that had these  problems. I'm not criticizing Arch at all. I liked it. You did answer my query though and have already downloaded 7. I should have time to install it by this evening or tomorrow.

I'm quite surprised, the usb ports "loss" means that there was a problem with a specific version of the kernel on your hardware, doesn't it?

Unable to login: in the TTYs? I can only guess that your /etc/passwd or shadow got overwritten because you ran pacman -Suf (and there was an update of the "filesystem" package)

In my opinion, each detail has to be considered for itself.
Whatever, Arch is of course a distro for those who want novelty and accept to do the necessary config changes. But I'm almost convinced that we can work around even this.