When it comes to the video-editor there's not much can be done about lost work.
In times past my project file might have older versions, and I could open those older versions and pull the missing work into the newer project.
With the OS issue and drivers I don't know if upgrading Ubuntu will solve that, but I have a bunch of custom configurations that will be become broken if I upgrade or do a new OS install.
I'm not worried about losing data because I do have most of my data backed up to a few drives, but it's more-so software configuration that will be broken if I upgrade/new install.
Just an example. I have my VMware Workstation install cracked so that it can run MacOS VM's, and I don't know if I can repeat that on another distro or a newer one. There's lots of little things that get lost, and you don't even necessarily think of them until you go to use them.
But I have to do something because I need Nvidia drivers to work.
I'm gonna swap in that new GPU and see if it'll work in this system.
My setup is fairly standard so I don't have issues on that front. I was playing with some audio stuff last night. It looks like Pipewire is making that simpler these days. I need to try doing an Ardour project whilst capturing it in OBS. That could be something fun for a post.
Pipewire is great, but in the video I'm working on right now I'm featuring Easy-Effects which was Pulse-Effects before ported to Pipewire.
It's a lot of fun to play with pitch/autotune/reverb etc.
I would be surprised if Ubuntu Studio doesn't include it in their audio tools.