There’s an option for a tented middle layer but it’s definitely a little jank. https://docs.keeb.io/tenting-bolts-setup

I’m a fan of the keebio Iris keyboard. They have a prebuilt version and you can disconnect the right side.

I do the same. I have Debian with KDE and Kodi autostart on boot. Use Kodi most of the time but can tab out if needed.

I’ve tried proxmox! Don’t currently have any hardware to run it but excited to do it. Part of the reason I don’t want to put it on the mini PC is that I can’t connect 3.5" drives over sata. I want to use the PC I plan on building as a combo server/NAS.

I am planning on a lot of services, but we’ll see about the rack of servers.

No, off the shelf routers are usually ARM and opnsense is x86 only.