OP, it seems as if the fear mongering and misinformation may have reached you through your cautious disposition.
I’ve gone through every single comment found below your post and at times I’ve been dumbfounded and/or astonished by the ludicrous claims that are spouted.
FFS, someone even expressed a problem found on imperative systems… While Fedora Atomic can be made (relatively) declarative (i.e. the exact opposite of imperative) for over a year now.
I will leave you with two videos in which the recent conference talks by the very same people that work on Fedora Atomic can be found. Consider watching these if you’re interested to know what they’re actually currently working on. If you pay attention, you will even notice how they mention common misconceptions that have also been brought up here…
The only fair criticism that I’ve found is the required investment and effort to adjust due to the associated paradigm shift and learning curve. However, this is peanuts compared to Guix System or NixOS.