Worst budget options [v4]

I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts. The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping. 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. This came up at a meetup recently and the room was split, so curious what the broader community thinks. Mostly thinking out loud — feel free to push back hard.