Should gear recommendations — what would you do? [v4]

I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts. Posting this here because the relevant subreddit has gotten too noisy lately. Quick context: I am relatively new to this and trying to find my footing.

I tried three different approaches and none of them felt quite right. I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts.

Maybe an unpopular opinion but here we go.