If you want to get things working then never "tinker" with things, maybe it's not worth it. But if you want to learn and be able to try new things it is really helpful. Having a new VM not breaking existing VMs reduces risk when trying something new.
I think GPU passthrough has improved since you have used it. Some command line prep work is still necessary, but the passthrough config is done in the GUI.
I am running Plex with an Intel A40 in Ubuntu server. Worked well for me as Ubuntu had the drivers baked in before they made there way into a Debian release.
I have found a couple things help me pretty reliably. Listen to something calming and repetitive like white noise or rain sounds. Then have a mundane thing to think about and focus on. I will visualize starting with a cube of wood and slowly cutting the edges and corners of to make a sphere. Or imagine I am cleaning a flow with methodic sweeping and mopping.
Other people have suggested good info to gain nuisanced knowledge. I recommend starting with a simple fact. With enough time and/or the right conditions all storage will fail. Design your setup with redundancy. I personally had to replace 2x 12tb drives this year. I have raidz3 (3 parity drives) and a hot spare. So I just bought cheap replacements from a reputable seller on eBay and consider it part of the cost of self hosting.