Has anyone tried pros and cons after a year [v5]

Quick context: I am relatively new to this and trying to find my footing. The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping. I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts.

For context, I am working with a pretty modest budget so high-end suggestions probably will not land.

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.