Arch isn’t that bad, it’s a lot of what you have to do in Gentoo. Infact Gentoo is more manual and hands on than arch with a lot more room for error. Arch has a lot of systems service made specifically to make install and maintenance easier.
I don’t know how long ago it was when you tried it but I’d give it another shot, it might surprise you! There’s a lot arch does to help you that most people don’t even realize.
Yeah, virtual box doesn’t work all that well from my experience. If you’re on windows I’d definitely recommend checking out VMware. VMware even has support for windows 95 and stuff.
It’s been about five years but I’ve managed to install arch just fine on virtual box (in macos) but VMware is just a more robust polished experience and it has a free version on windows.