Show & tell: common pitfalls [v5]

Spent the last few weekends digging into this and the deeper I go the more questions I have. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not.

The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not.

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Been thinking about this for a while and curious what the community thinks. I tried three different approaches and none of them felt quite right.