Just use Alpine. Chimera uses Alpine's package manager anyway. The only reason you havent heard about Alpine in this context is because they do not claim they are doing anything revolutionary, they just strive to make a great distro.
Chimera Linux actually uses apk or Alpine Package Keeper as its package manager, they acknowledge this but despite that market themselves as if they did something revolutionary that has never been done before
njal.la is a domain registrar, they do not and never have operated dhlsucks.com, they just provided the domain to someone and dhl contacted them to take the site down
Think of AppImage like a standalone executable on windows, you download it, it just works and thats good. But it doesnt get automatic updates and to get a new feature you need to download it again. Flatpaks and Snaps don't have this issue and are more like traditional package managers.
inb4 but thats a corporate distro, it is just sponsored by SUSE but is community maintained
I agree that there are not many distros that are both user friendly and not forks of something else, but I don't see it as an issue, imo there is nothing wrong with forks.
There are VPS services that dont give a fuck about DMCAs and pirated content. You should specifically look for one like that if this is your intent. I do not have any specific provider recommendations but you might find something useful in lowendtalk.
I use Migadu but you need your own domain for that and also it is paid.