10 years ago... I would manually level my ender, religiously monitor it, and still deal with a decently high failure rate (esp for anything other than PLA). Tuning the printer took easily as much time as I actually spent printing with it. I upgraded all the things, flashed firmware, ran octoprint, etc...

It was like driving - gotta keep the hands on the wheel and maintain alertness at all times. It was an activity that required my attention and focus.

Then I caved and got an X1C in 2023. It's... a really, REALLY good machine.

It's like flying somewhere. I get on the plane, start up a movie or a book, and someone wakes me up when the flight is over. It's a tool that is doing things for me while I do other stuff.

I'm at the point where I'm not really interested in the "middle" all that much. Either go with a Voron and get the "I'm driving" feeling if that's what you want. Or get a Bambu and get chauffeured to successful print.