Show & tell: the meta for newcomers [v4]

I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not.

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Spent the last few weekends digging into this and the deeper I go the more questions I have. Maybe an unpopular opinion but here we go.