Keeping a whole second suit for a zipper problem never made sense to me. That's a grand or two sitting in your truck doing nothing but the same thing a backup zipper would do. Learn to swap the zipper yourself and you're not driving to Texas City or paying $340 ever again. It's not that hard once you've done it twice, and a new zipper costs maybe $60 online. The shop had you over a barrel because you were on the clock, and that's exactly why you got charged that much. Keep a spare zipper and the glue in your kit and you fix it on site in an hour.

Zip tying 14 cords into one bundle is the same trap as stuffing every bill into one drawer and calling it organized, it looks tidy until you need to pull one thing out. Keeping power and AV cords on separate paths is not overthinking it, that's just basic cable sense.

A $12 bulb on a north sill is like bringing a butter knife to a sword fight, your neighbor has the sun doing 90% of the work and the bulb just topping it off. Six weeks of leggy stems is your answer, get that pot somewhere with real light or accept you are growing spaghetti.