You use the same linux install (cloned) for a decade? Thats wild. I just install and document my changes so its not much to do for a reinstall. So for some it works, for some not. OP might be like me, thus my answer has a right to exist! Maybe you could stop correcting others for being different.

Linux is not a car. If i could reinstall a broken car i would do it instead burying money and time in it.

If you have separate partitions for root/home, just reinstall kubuntu.

Its something capitalism does.

oooo pi