Why the new release that changed my mind [v2]

The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping. Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

For context, I am working with a pretty modest budget so high-end suggestions probably will not land. Spent the last few weekends digging into this and the deeper I go the more questions I have. Maybe an unpopular opinion but here we go.

I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts. Long-time lurker, first-time poster.