Oh man, so Pop!_OS has a "pop shop" where it officially supports 470 and 560. 550 isn't on there so, while I could try it, I wouldn't expect it to work.

In "Software and Updates" I have options for the "NVIDIA driver metapackages" for 390, 470, and 560. 560 is currently selected.
I also have the NVIDIA server driver metapackage for 535, so I could try that. It would be newer than 470 but not as current as 560.

But since the chances this would fix it are already low (and 560 drivers fixed my other issues), I'm hesitant to try unless I exhaust every other option.

So after installing it I see:
nvidia-driver-550 is already the newest version (560.35.03-1pop0~1729800494~22.04~4a3cad6)

So 550 is there, but it's using 560. I assume that means I need to purge all traces of 560 and 550 and then reinstall 550, unless I can specify somewhere to use 550.

However in software and updates there is no 550, only 560.

Alright, I think I may have found my solution.

• The crash only occurs on desktop environments that use x11, it does not occur on DEs that use Wayland.
• The only DE that uses Wayland that Pop officially supports (that I can tell at least) is "Pop (on Wayland)," which is GNOME.
• GNOME doesn't look or feel familiar to me, Cinnamon does. I really like Cinnamon. But today I realized GNOME extensions can be used to make GNOME feel different, and are (at least so far) remarkably stable.
• By installing the extension manager, and then adding the extensions "Dash to Panel" and "ArcMenu" and tweaking them I've been able to achieve the look and feel that I was going for with Cinnamon, on a DE that doesn't crash on suspend. (Note for anyone else that tries this: I had to disable the "Cosmic Dock" and "Pop COSMIC" extensions so things would play nice with the new extensions.)

So it's a workaround. It's essentially finding a way to make the "new" stuff feel like the old stuff, but as an added benefit, I get all the functionality that the new stuff offers.

it hadn't occurred to me that someone would use their distro w/o the hardware.

i bought from a system76 rival w their own distro too so that i can avoid situations like this and lemmy is teaching me how lazy and out of touch it's made me; op's smart to use a distro from a linux company that maintains its own distro with it's own paid developers because there's a stronger chance that there's an answer in their forum, compared to some obscure distro maintained by volunteers with day jobs.