I’ve had iMacs for almost 20 years. My last one was indeed my last. Without target display mode (use the Mac as a monitor), I’m ditching a perfectly good monitor. I was going to buy a Mac Studio and a good monitor to replace the iMac until the spouse reminded me that we are now retired and will spend time in a camper. So a MBP for me (and BenQ’s Mac-specific monitor), but others might do well to consider a Mac Mini/Studio.

iMacs are great for a lot of use cases, but my image of the typical HN user would prefer to keep the monitor separate.

It's like, you pay laptop prices for laptop performance but without laptop portability or desktop modularity. This only sorta made sense back when Apple had no "prosumer" desktop offering unless you wanted a cheap used Mac Pro (which is what I ended up doing at some point).