> Yet, still 1/4th of the time my ThinkPad with Linux wakes with a Thunderbolt display connected it dies with a kernel panic deep in the code that handles DDC (no matter what kernel version).

This doesn't happen on my ThinkPad but does on my MacBook. If anyone else faces these kernel panics on their Mac, you have to set your monitor to a hard 120hz rather than a variable rate on the macOS display settings. KDE handles the variable rate just fine on the ThinkPad for me.