Hot take: edge cases on a tight budget [v4]

Mostly thinking out loud — feel free to push back hard.

I tried three different approaches and none of them felt quite right. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not. For context, I am working with a pretty modest budget so high-end suggestions probably will not land.

Posting this here because the relevant subreddit has gotten too noisy lately.