Should long-term planning that changed my mind [v5]

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. Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

Been thinking about this for a while and curious what the community thinks. Maybe an unpopular opinion but here we go. There is a lot of conflicting advice online and most of it is from 2019.