Exit node is where the tor-encrypted path ends and traffic goes to the clearnet.

What’s the point of any of it then to a paranoid user?

The reason to use the tor<->plaintext bridge is to route around censorship, eg the great firewall of china, or various western ISPs blackholing the pirate bay, and also to prevent the server from learning much about the client’s identity

If you don’t want any MITM possibilities, that’s what the onion services are for (both client and server are speaking over tor connections)

Got me - it looks like a decently effective honeypot though for ‘paranoid but hasn’t thought it all the way through’

the exit node has no knowledge of your IP address and your traffic should still be protected by HTTPS.

Because it switches over to the clearnet there, the operator could do stuff like intercept non-https traffic or use a malicious DNS to attempt to MITM https traffic.