As for the other question in thr post: If you are using btrfs or zfs I believe both of those have a send function that operates at a block level and will only send block changes rather than full file changes
Configure and Pre backup the drives before bringing them to family members to save yourself some bandwidth
You can group Gnome Apps in their launching tool. (Same as you group and name apps on Android, just drag one onto another) Its a different idea right. Hit super key and start typing or select the app. Maybe Plasma is more what you want where everything is customizable.
3D CAD/Modeling on AMD graphics is fine. AMD is on the certification list for enterprise level CAD. I was running Proprietary CAD on Linux for a while.
Two separate EFI boot Partitions if you dual boot. Its not worth letting Windows know about linux. Linux chainloads to Windows boot.