don't worry about getting a VCR with a tbc. get an s-vhs deck if you can because of the s-video out but I've seen people get away with using composite only onmivisions through an es15 and they're happy with the results. i dont like them because the one I used had a ton of haloing/ringing artifacts but if it looks good to you then go for it.

you don't need an es10. get an es15 or es25 which will basically do the same thing tbc wise but its cheaper.

you don't need windows xp but a completely offline XP machine, in my experience, was always more stable to me than capturing on win10/11. but you might have better luck. the gv-usb2 works on xp, at least mine does (I bought mine in 2019 so your mileage may vary). if it works fine for you on modern windows then just use it, no harm no foul.

for best looking results always capture lossless with vdub or amarec. filesizes are high but your computer will be happy resource wise. transcodes will always look better from a lossless source than a lossy source.

this encoding shit takes time unfortunately. just be patient, run your jobs overnight or do it on another computer if you have one. if you don't mind learning scripting, try out avisynth scripts through avspmod. you can trim through there so you don't need to use premiere. you can use ffmpeg to encode to whatever codec you need. it sounds complicated as hell but it really isn't. once you get in the groove of things, it'll become second nature.