Thanks for all of the replies. My bad for not including some of the design considerations I took for granted:
- New
- High power enough for my intended use cases plus maybe a little growth/experimenting while minimizing unnecessary power and heat
With that in mind, some of your suggestions are just overkill for me - and even by your own admissions, some of you as well 
Anyways, here’s what I’m going with. All in $232 (+$30 for the M.2 enclosure).
I’ll report back for others who may be doing research for similar goals after I get around to configuring it, fully transition my current production setup, and use it for a couple months.
