Should pros and cons — am I overthinking this? [v3]

Spent the last few weekends digging into this and the deeper I go the more questions I have. For context, I am working with a pretty modest budget so high-end suggestions probably will not land. Been thinking about this for a while and curious what the community thinks.

The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping. Quick context: I am relatively new to this and trying to find my footing. Posting this here because the relevant subreddit has gotten too noisy lately.