Layer things that genuinely need (often in boot sequence) low level access like filesystems (e.g. I have mergerfs+snapraid on my desktop). If you're OK with a longer rpm-ostree update, you can layer some self contained things like btop with little risk, perhaps also your preferred shell. Also anything you want in TTYs if something breaks.

vim edit /etc/fstab works fine from within a distrobox, you just need to do sudo vim /run/host/etc/fstab or distrobox-export the binary to your main shell, which means that the container will start, but you don't have to enter it. If you fire a terminal profile into the container by default at login you won't need to start the container when you use an exported command.

Embrace the distrobox experience for development and generally mucking around, use Arch's AUR, archive entire environments, there's lots going for it.

Linux brew is coming along nicely, use it first if there's a formula, but I've been fine with flatpak, distrobox and layers (in that order) for a couple of years now.