vividspecter

This is something NixOS excels at, but there is a bit of a learning curve. Maybe ansible as a non distro specific approach although I haven't used it myself.

I just went the parsing CSV route, but it's only semi-automated. Still a lot better than manually entering everything. Annoyingly, every bank uses a different damn format so you need specific config for all of them.

or Emacs

Specifically, org-mode. Certainly the coolest part of Emacs, in my view.

I'd go with Wireguard if the router supports it, since it's also easy to setup and much faster than OpenVPN. Or tailscale/headscale for problematic networks (CG-NAT etc).

(not sure if btrfs can do that too but it might)

It can. And they'll both alert you of problems if you do regular scrubs, which might be enough even with non-raid installs, if you have secondary backups.

As such, it works even in complex situations like Steam installations

Steam also works with NFS just fine (at least for the libraries, maybe not a full Steam installation), although Samba can be problematic in my experience. But your overall point is reasonable.

Robert rules say we gotta have minutes for a meeting.