I've been struggling with my K1 since Christmas. I bought it on sale for Black Friday and no matter who I contact at Creality, no one can tell me what replacement parts to order. K1 parts don't fit my printer. They want pictures to see what 'buckle' I have, because my serial number isn't enough information, but who wants to tear down a printer just to take pictures? Now my thermistor is broken (a leg weld just fell right off while I was fixing a clog), and I can't order a new one because what do I order? This printer doesn't take K1 parts. Every time I order something, it has to get shipped back. I'm annoyed and venting, but also trying to help anyone else considering a Creality printer. Don't do it. Their support is a joke and they take zero accountability.
I've added an image for help explaining the problem. These two JST connections are completely different, but both are supposed to be for the K1. And both of these listings are Creality Official:
Your 5. is not wrong though. My first printer was a used Ender 3 v2 that I modified and tuned quite a bit until I was finally tired of issues with the bowden extruder and got myself an Ender 3 S1 Pro. In hindsight, I should have purchased the S1 Pro in the first place, but the v2 did teach me valuable lessons, even though I spent more time fixing and tuning the thing than enjoying successful prints.
The S1 Pro ended up accumulating a lot of dust over my two years of ownership and I now own a Qidi Q2. That one has its own set of issues and design flaws, but their support is okay and for what it costs, it can print an astonishing variety of materials with good to great quality.
When buying your first car, would you pay extra to get a worse car so you have to learn mechanics in addition to learning how to drive? :)
It's definitely about finding the least bad printer if shopping the budget stuff, they all have issues as you say. Personally I think it's best to buy the printer which is the least likely to have severe design and/or manufacturing flaws and focus on learning how to get good prints out of it. When you're a complete beginner it's difficult to know if your print turns out bad because you're doing something wrong or if it's caused by a hardware issue.