Quick poll: unpopular opinions vs the alternatives [v4]

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

This came up at a meetup recently and the room was split, so curious what the broader community thinks.

The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping.