Bonus points for using it in mutt for all electronic correspondence.
Also, why the Dickens are you using Windows when your heart clearly yearns for a nice native i3 setup?
That was explained a few weeks ago in this post:
https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/i-tried-linux-as-my-main-dev-...
Ah OK. Haven't had that myself, even using USB audio interfaces in a similar fashion, so I wouldn't put that down to Linux. I use monitor speakers and have good hearing and definitely not getting those issues with a simple pulseaudio setup. I flick between youtube, cmus, recording on my old Zoom H2, audio from a VM etc. so have run the gamut of opportunities for it to pop and click.
Sounds like you had to spend a lot of time troubleshooting and in the end thought it wasn't worth the fight. I hear you, but I would see if I could borrow another audio interface from a store or contact of yours before giving up on OS-freedom for good. The Scarlett is an entry-level device anyway, known to have dubious build quality. I'd also take it up with the manufacturer before looking for more fixes.
Good luck!
After I finish this next course I will try again with a different distro, and then see if my other USB mic that worked on the Chromebook (running native Linux) also works on my main machine.
And truthfully, the productivity wins for me weren't so much tied into being able to input text at a faster rate with Vim.
It was being able to leverage Vim itself to help me rethink and reshape how I organize large amounts of structured text, which saves a lot of time and headaches when dealing with files. Plus there's other wins too with limelight and video editing (an added bonus).
I'm still not 100% as fast as I was with VSCode for inputting and editing text but after 2 weeks of using Vim, it's not a complete train wreck anymore. It was brutal for days, but it's slowly getting better.