I've been loosely following this thread, and it's been interesting to see the different directions it has taken. Given my experience in Node RED is essentially non-existent, and my RM use is limited, my views are more philosophical (sorry for the long read...).
I think everyone's situation is different, which is why you can get such widely differing views on topics such as this. People's own personal expertise, their HA setup, the layout of a home and the people who occupy it, etc, all these can play into peoples views and experiences with different technologies and how to apply them. That's why discussions such as these and this community are so valuable, you can canvas a number of opinions so quickly and easily. But with that means that there is not always one quick, easy answer, not always a "one size fits all" solution. What works of benefits one person, may not work or provide any real benefit to another. Ideally you need to find out who best matches your own situation, or elements of it, and look at their experience and recommendations.
If you are going to introduce something new, such as Node RED, it's important to understand the reasons why. I think the reasons mostly boil down to a "need" that cannot be serviced easily by your current setup, although need is probably a strong word to use in the broader context of life in general.... The change may be to provide some added benefit, or simply for the fun of doing it, which could probably come under a benefit.
If it's a need, I think the points raised about having a backup option easily available is a good strategy, have the flexibility to change again if that decision is taken out of your hands, i.e. the Stringify example. Also manage the transition carefully. I have toyed a couple of times with moving my lights onto HE, but was careful to make sure I only did a small subset of my lighting setup, tested the outcome and was able to roll back to my Hue Bridge relatively quickly and easily. The same would be true of moving from RM to Node RED.
If the change is to reap some additional benefit, then you need to be sure about the effort required and how easy it may be to maintain the new setup and what support you may have available in order to make it a success. I think that is where the comments around documentation and support within a community such as this come into play. When I went down the path of setting up my raspberry Pi with InfluxDb and Grafana in order to do temperature charts, etc, I felt that was the best option for me at the time as I had experience with Linux, there were people on this community and in the broader Internet community that used the same setup (or elements of it) for various use cases, so I new I would have enough support to help me through any issues I may face. The Rpi also opens up other possibilities, in much the same way I expect Node RED would.
I think I've written enough... 
I guess in the end the main thing is to ensure you enjoy the ride, which I certainly have so far.
Simon
