Worst the latest update after a year [v2]

Spent the last few weekends digging into this and the deeper I go the more questions I have. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not.

Posting this here because the relevant subreddit has gotten too noisy lately. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not. For context, I am working with a pretty modest budget so high-end suggestions probably will not land.

The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not.