You clearly do not have a grasp on that concept, which you have made abundantly clear every single time you post in this thread. You're an all or nothing sort of person.
Hahahaha, you are absolutely correct about me. I'm totally an "all or nothing" type of person, and there's no such thing as middle ground for me. It's also stunning that I share most of your hobbies at the exception of cars maybe. I think where we are so different is that I don't see learning something new as "work" or something that can't be enjoyed along the way. I've learned photography by acquiring knowledge one step at the time, at my own pace, and this process is a lifetime endeavour.
That being said, if there's only one piece of advice I can give you, and it will certainly go against your grain, but it would be to make that small effort once to get a good grasp over the very core basic concepts of photography. You already have some of the knowledge, so it's really just a matter of putting it together and make sense out of it. You said you like middle ground, well, understanding just this out of photography is exactly being in the middle of your journey.
If you know how to expose your shots correctly, and how shutter speed, aperture, and ISO are interacting together, then seriously, you're pretty much done. With that very little knowledge, you will no longer have exposure problems or blurred pictures. When automatic programs aren't the answer, and it happens often, then you can go full manual to get exactly what you want. There's tons of stuff online to learn just this, but if you have access to the material that best suit your way of learning, which seems particular, then it's a matter of maybe 30 minutes of your time. No joke, I'm dead serious, and I can say you spent more time writing in this discussion than you would need to learn the basics. My brother showed me how to expose film correctly on his Pentax K-1000 when I was about 13 years old, it took me 10 minutes to pick it up entirely and I never forgot since. It's still the same fundamentals 30+ years later even though we are on digital. It's even easier today as we get instant feedback on our camera monitors.
Once you have that understanding, it may totally change your decision for your next camera. While it's your way to "buy and try", which is inexpensive and fun when buying donuts, it's another story with cameras that sell for several hundreds of dollars a piece. I don't know, but before spending my hard earned money, I'd like to make sure I won't end up deceived...
Anyway, this is my last post on this discussion. I've beaten up your poor dead horse too much already! Good luck!
