I do not get what you refer to by arcane error messages that give constant worry. While some error messages need to be googled I think PostgreSQL is pretty good

I do not get what you refer to by arcane error messages that give constant worry. While some error messages need to be googled I think PostgreSQL is pretty good at only printing error messages when something is wrong. So if you are getting strange errors from PostgreSQL it is almost certainly an issue which should be fixed.