Well done! Rather than having to read through numerous discussions and opinions, you’ve summed it up very well. This kind of doc is what will accelerate the adoption of the EI platform by those with less experience. I ended up using a Flora for a fun project due to a bit of uncertainty with neopixels on the EI. After reading your article, I would likely have used a C3V0 (it’s a battery powered project), albeit at a somewhat higher cost.
A slight edit suggestion–the paragraph above the 6 pixel strip that begins with “However the line of…” may have an error in the fourth sentence that reads, “Instead the ordered of data in the frame provides the addressing…”. I believe it should read “Instead, the order of …”. FWIW.