"it's fine"... It's very versatile for self reassurance.
Working on something and find yourself letting perfect be the enemy of good? Just stop, it's fine.
Making some mountain out of a molehill? Stop worrying about it, it's fine....
Before I get too carried away with examples, I'll just stop there, it's fine
I wouldn't go smaller than microATX, and even then I kinda regret not going ATX in mine... Unless you absolutely need to use whatever enclosure you're looking at... I say keep shopping and find the space for something bigger... It'll just end up being less wasted effort when you run into a problem that an extra PCI slot could solve
I had great luck with Anycubic as my first printer... If you want to have a larger variety of materials available I recommend a printer with an enclosure (depending on the age of your kid, it's a bit safer too?)
I will try I haven't used them recently but a friend of mine uses a Kobra 4 which produces prints very close in quality to my X1Carbon (I know...). That one has no enclosure, but the Kobra 3 is still available for even less if you really just want to see if the hobby takes hold.
They have a Kobra S1 which seems like a decent option but I haven't done any research.
My personal advice would be to not skimp too much on cost... Trying to stick with my older hardware nearly killed the hobby for me since everyone around me was printing higher quality it a quarter of the time....
Freeze dryers are much less useful day-to-day so the market is much smaller which won't really drive much of a scaling up of production like happened for microwaves I imagine
If you have a moment to indulge a random person...
What made you feel the need to switch off of Nobara? I've been using it and it's been fine, but I'd love to know some things to keep an eye out for