That is definitely your Windows bias haunting you. Package managers are the way to get software on your Linux distro. Going straight to the source has it's place, but for 95% of use cases, you should be using your package manager.

In much the way I am aware of the Windows store: I avoid it and work to get the software directly from the source.

That is not the way things work on Linux - the repos essentially are the source. It is intended for apps to be packaged and distributed through official repos precisely to avoid the issues you listed, which are more often issues of downloading from sites. Package managers take care of incompatible versions and conflicts. That's definitely a Windows bias my friend :P

Ok but imagine if Microsoft got altruistic and made the Windows store to be as helpful as possible and not as a marketing or user control scheme. That’s the package manager in Linux.

Wait, are you setting up PPAs? If you're using a user-friendly distro, either flathub should be enabled by default or the AUR is easily accessible with pamac or the chaotic-AUR. If software availability is a problem, I don't know what to tell you; I think you started with a more difficult distribution than you intended to. PPAs suck.

You're doing it wrong. Get it from your package manager lol

Lol