Recommendations for gear recommendations — what would you do? [v2]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts. Mostly thinking out loud — feel free to push back hard. Mostly thinking out loud — feel free to push back hard.

Maybe an unpopular opinion but here we go. Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not.