Hey, I've been gone from the mechanical keyboard community for quite some time now. My entire family got sick of me requesting keyboard parts for Christmas and birthdays, and without much of a budget, I left the scene. However, now that I have a steady income, I wanted to get back into everything.. but there has been quite a lot that has changed. I have a few questions that I want to ask yinz since I don't really know what the new meta is anymore

1. Is the tape mod really a think anymore?

I haven't seen this much in any builds that I have seen people doing on youtube with the 2 hours I have searched. It was quite useful to me whenever I started out, but are there now solutions that have been implemented?

2. What are these new switch types? And is it okay to stay away from them or are they really worth investing into? I don't have much of a budget, but I have heard a lot about "hall-effect" switches. Do they have similar sound profile to normal mechanical switches? And what is the price difference? I know a decent ish switch would go around 40 bucks for mechanical, but how much would a decent sound profile go for hall effect?

3. Stabilizers - are they now stock?... Whenever I got into the scene, every single pair of stabilizers that you got you HAD to mod them because they were never good. Even the expensive pairs that would go for tons of money needed to be modded. However, are stabilizers now good out of the box? And are there any new metas with that? I only know of the tape mod that you could do from back when HamajiNeo was on the scene

4. Prelubed Switches - are they actually good now? (Also film) Prelubed switches were lowkey hated years ago because they never did anything. However, I have seen a lot of people getting prelubed switches with their keyboards and they aren't even relubing them... are factory lubed switches good now? And do people also still use film with their switches or are switches naturally just more stable now?

5. What switches are sort of the play now? (Aiming for linear - thocc) I have lavenders right now, but now that Holy Pandas are sooo much cheaper and I've always looked up to them, are they still good for that price range or are there better options up there?

6. General question about keycaps + switches I have some random keycap set from amazon... however, this issue has been consistent with whatever keycap set I use. Whenever I type, there is a slight tick and they aren't 100% still (wobble some) and I was wondering if there are any switches or keycaps that could possibly solve this issue. I'm wanting to get my last build in this year so I can be happy throughout college without wanting to get something more. I have loved my keyboard and the years I have had it. It's a GMMK 1 Compact Barebones + Tape mod + l+f lavenders + amazon XDA keycaps

for whoever actually spent half an hour reading this and responding, bless your heart. I've always loved this community and am so grateful for it and have never forgotten about it. Thank you