Best first impressions after a year [v4]

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.

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. For context, I am working with a pretty modest budget so high-end suggestions probably will not land. This came up at a meetup recently and the room was split, so curious what the broader community thinks.