The actual problem you are having is that there isn't a setup option on virtually any distro that will set this up for you but you are clearly setup incorrectl

The actual problem you are having is that there isn't a setup option on virtually any distro that will set this up for you but you are clearly setup incorrectly. I was using Funtoo with a zfs root for years until the machines CPU died. The process of booting up looked like hit power button wait for desktop to show up. The "basic mistakes they are doing" are completely a function of your distro not having a way to easily set this up and you not knowing how to use it correctly. As far as I know the only distro that supports zfs on root via its installer is at https://project-trident.org/ https://project-trident.org/ You might try it in a virtual machine.