Lots of xfce distros. My favorite is Zorin Lite
Podo_Danderfluff
Worthikids. Bigtop Burger is great.
He's got 8 fingers on each hand. 🤣
The cheap fix would be to get the color-matching stretchable filler, but those are more used for holes; I think it might introduce more problems when the floor shifts.
If your NAS can handle virtual machines, that might be easier, and then set up your client device as a thin client. Check this video out. This guy's whole channel is awesome.
Is this to replace your /home/$USER ? I've never done it with a symlink, but you could actually mount a samba share to the home directory with cifs-utils. A quick search will find you instructions, such as This one.
I think the only way to do this with better performance would be to use iSCSI, which requires a little more setup but would be the best in terms of reliability and speed.
Also, if you use it with purpose as a motivation to complete a task, they have a term for it; Body Doubling.
Most emulators have just been built/developed with what people are used to, or what they like, which has become more similar over the years. Your questions confuses me a bit, but if you are actually looking for a good front-end for your standalone emulators, try emudeck: https://www.emudeck.com/