Great points, as someone who is very happy with their current home automation and services, checking in the config files to a git repo was the critical step. Also backup volumes since many containers tend to store state in some binary or internal DB. At the very least try restoring the config to verify you have what’s needed. The containers should start even if they have no media on it.
In terms of tinkering not being fun anymore. That’s okay, sometimes you need a break.
A point that is sometimes not brought up enough in my opinion is to plan for loses. What can you afford to lose if you can’t backup everything (due to price, etc.)? config files and photos or personal data are relatively small (compared to something like a media library) and should be prioritized.
It’s shit for automating things and especially useless outside the Apple ecosystem, but it does offer the option to turn off sharing.
Apple ID -> Find My -> Share My Location
Since it’s closed source it’s possible they still capture the location and I would t trust it, but in practice anyone that you’ve allowed to see your location (for an hour, day, while on-route) gets a “location unknown” on their app of the toggle is off.