Underrated budget options I keep coming back to [v3]

I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not.

There is a lot of conflicting advice online and most of it is from 2019. For context, I am working with a pretty modest budget so high-end suggestions probably will not land. There is a lot of conflicting advice online and most of it is from 2019.