Just a small update for me after much thought. I ended up buying a 15" MBA 16GB/1TB through Apple's refurbished store and have been putting it through my normal paces over the last few days. For my workflow, it more than meets my needs and is exceptional. I'm not sure I'll ever need to go back to the MBP line up.
I did try out my kid's MBA with 8GB/512 and while it was fine, with a lot of browser (Brave) tabs open and some MS programs running, I was bumping up against the 8GB RAM threshold. I'm still amazed Apple is willing to sell 8GB models, especially at the MBP level. Until that changes, I think almost everyone except the casual user should view the prices of the base products as +$200-400 for upgrades.