I generally agree with this order, but my journey took me in a different order. After having propane forever I moved to a Weber and the snake method, but then I went with an offset with a real fire box.
After getting really good results but not always having enough time to stoke the fire for 12+ hours I bought a very high end pellet smoker that I converted to also use charcoal and wood.
My stick burner gets used maybe once a year now. I’ll go pellet at least once a week, and charcoal or wood in the converted pellet at least once a month. I also can build a makeshift konro inside my pellet smoker, and I use that all the time.
Oh right, I also have an offset vertical smoker, and hunt a lot of my own protein, so yeah, it’s a deep hole I’ve dug into.
I hear you, it’s definitely a zen state.
I live walking distance from the ocean, so it’s nice to set a pellet up and monitor it from the beach. Run back when it’s time to wrap/spray/etc, and then hang on the sand until the internal temps remind me it’s time to head home and rest everything in a cooler.
All of my sausage, fish, and jerky goes in the vertical smoker. I have to manually tend the fire on that, but the temp swings and fuel consumption are much more stable, so it’s generally quite a bit easier than minding my normal offset.
Chilling in the yard to tend fire and empty a 30 rack with the neighbor is fun for sure, and my stick burner develops better bark than the pellet, even if I use wood in it. So when I want to go all in on a competition, or I’m doing like 8 briskets at a time for a huge event I’ll run the stick burner. Otherwise it’s something in the pellet smoker.