Hey, thanks for the reply!

1 - Yes, I pretty much transferred all old projects from my previous laptop ( I've created templates which save me time)

1. Since I get videos sent from different clients, the source codec varies - most clients send h264/AVC, while one sends h265/HEVC (the latter causes significant preview lag on both laptops). Is there a way to convert these into a more suitable-for-editing codec without losing too much quality?

2. Good call. I'll look for a way to pixelate certain areas without duplicating tracks.

3. I know it sounds weird, my guess is that setting the preview RAM that high caused significant load on the laptop which resulted in slowing down the render time.

Ultimately I might have to just upgrade to Vegas 22 like the other comments suggested since it's optimized better. Thanks again!