I hear you loud and clear on this one with WAF wife-acceptance-factor. Having as much as possible operate locally without the need for internet goes a long way to maximum WAF. I fought that with ST till I was blue in the face.
My two cents is to spend some time on building out the Z-Wave or Zigbee network mesh properly to minimize future issues. How to Build a Solid Z-Wave Mesh - Hubitat Documentation
There is another post by @JDRoberts about building out the Zwave mesh properly but I couldn't find it.
It sounds like you have a really good grasp where you want to go with home automation my friend. Welcome to the HE family!
