An interesting discussion. As I said, I crop because I shoot subjects that are too far way to fill the frame even with a 600mm lens. That said, I have wondered why there has been no mention of using a balance of empty and filled space, or "nose room" for subjects oriented to the left or right, or "head room," rule of thirds, vanishing point and perspective, or any of the many other ways to create a pleasing arrangement of the subject in the frame. Rules are made to be broken, but they should still be considered in the creative process.

I take pictures of birds in the wild. With a 42mp sensor and a 600mm lens I frequently crop down to 2000x1600 for good composition and a sharp image. A longer lens would be too costly for unpaid work and would also take more time to find and focus on the subject. A smaller sensor just allows for less cropping to maintain a sharp finished product.

Two thoughts. If I'm using my 18MP walk-around camera I try to fill the frame because I don't have a lot of pixels for cropping. With my 42MP camera and long lens I have plenty of room to crop to 200 to 300 dpi, but if you study the entire frame around what you thought was your subject you can sometimes find surprising secondary objects of interest that you missed in the field.

You might try "Audio Jungle" for buyout music. There's a wide range of music and the rates are reasonable.

The camera isn't the only player. There is also the digital display(s) or the printer and paper that will be used to hold the image. None of these is perfect and none can show the full dynamic range of what the camera captures. I would say that actions that alter or compress the perameters of an image so that it can be displayed either on a digital screen or on paper in a way that is a close approximation of what the eye would have seen may be art, but shouldn't be confused with changing the sky or background or making objects in the frame disappear.

The camera isn't the only player. There is also the digital display(s) or the printer and paper that will be used to hold the image. None of these is perfect and none can show the full dynamic range of what the camera captures. I would say that actions that alter or compress the perameters of an image so that it can be displayed either on a digital screen or on paper in a way that is a close approximation of what the eye would have seen may be art, but shouldn't be confused with changing the sky or background or making objects in the frame disappear.

If nature photography includes birds and other distant subjects as well as closeups of bees and flowers too, then your general purpose lens is more important than the camera brand. Personally, I shoot with a Sony a99ii because I crop a lot and a 28-300mm Tamron lens because it will work as a pseudo macro and has the reach, with the 42 MP sensor, for wildlife. That covers everything but the extreme macros and the the wildlife that requires a lens in the 400-600mm range.

I think the best policy is to use the "C:" drive for software and separate drives for data. My personal choice is to use mirrored RAIDs for all important documents, photos, and videos, but it is important to maintain duplicate files on several physically separate devices. Cloud storage such as Flickr, with is system of tags, albums, and groups, should also be considered.

I just flew out to Yellowstone for a week and took my Manfrotto Befree in my carry-on. I hike with it often, shooting with a pro-summer video camera and an a99ii with a 400mm lens. Obviously not as stable as a heavier tripod, but the leveling is easy and quick and I can compensate for the lack of stability. Besides, who wants to hike for miles or up and down hills with a tripod that weighs more than three pounds?

I use a Sony XD Cam that shoots 4K I import directly into Premier Pro for editing. The camera can handle phantom and standard XLR connections for microphones with external controls for mic selection and audio gain.
Start, stop, and variable zoom can be controlled either from the top or from the right side. The only "drawback" is that the video format is proprietary, although Premier Pro can read it directly.

I shot video professionally for forty years. All else being equal, video cameras are ergonomically designed with variable rate zoom lens controls, viewfinders that help promote camera stability, and controls you'd have to dig pretty deep in the weeds to find on a DSLR. Since the image size for 4k is only 8.3 megapixels, sensors can be smaller with a noticeable reduction in video quality, with the accompanying reduction in actual focal lengths, etc.

You can shoot great video with a DSLR, but you'll have to work harder at it.

My experience with Sony is that in conditions in which the autofocus can't find a solution or for other extreme situations the camera refuses to take a picture. Very frustrating, but the problem goes away as soon as the "unworkable" conditions are resolved.

One way to look at the cost of a monitor is to consider longevity. If you keep a monitor for ten years (not unreasonable in my experience), then a monitor is a very minor part of your operating costs. Also, I use pneumatic monitor arms. I bought them so I could get desk monitors closer (old eyes) without losing desk surface. Just like moving to multiple monitors, once you have them you can't imagine doing without.

In the Navy. Stationed near Taipei in a desk job.

Bought my first Minolta (SRT-101) in Taiwan around 1970. Someone stole it in 1979, so I replaced it with the SRT-202 I just sent off to a new home.