I reach for the ~/bin/thing approach when I want the utility to be useable from vim.

For example, if I define an alias thing, vim won't know about it.

But as a executable on my $PATH, I can do any of the following:

  :%!thing
  :'<'>!thing
  :.!thing

A good example is on my work machine, I can't install jq because reasons. However I do have python, so I have a simple executable called fmtjson that looks like this:

  #!/bin/sh
  python -m json.tool --indent 2

When I want to format some json from vim, I just run:

  :%!fmtjson

Easy to remember, easy to type. Plus I can use it in pipes on the cli.