but if you're a developer or systems engineer who sees your OS as a critical part of your toolkit—one that should be as reliable and version-controlled as your code—then the tough road of NixOS is absolutely worth it.

Is the value added benefit to other systems with regards to the cost really worth it? Btw, I love home manager because it is easy to use (I haven't had problems so far).

All the negatives listed here seem to include a workaround, and the first is basically just restating that the language sucks. The language is the only real turn off for me.