I want a useful bootable pendrive, with a Debian base.
Might try Knoppix - for some reason I thought it was RedHat-based - otherwise I've found the Debian Derivatives Census which provides others to check out. (Would be nice if they had basic filtering functionality.)
Buried within the Debian download directories (which can't currently be accessed because whoever is doing maintenance doesn't understand what a mirror is), is an unofficial live ISO with cinnamon and the non-free firmware - basically the two reasons for wanting Mint.
I hacked with URLs to find 9.5/Stretch (stable) on a mirror - wanted to try 10/Buster (testing) but looks like the weekly releases are only on the offline official servers - though I still need to find a spare USB drive to put it on.
Will be sticking with Gnome, whilst wishing there was more viable variety.
Wish someone would hire me to lead a bunch of Linux developers too; if even half my thoughts could be translated into software the result would be superb.