I bought a 16" Pro thinking I would need it and realized I never do anything other than simple photo/video editing, occasional VM usage and browsing the internet. Returned it and used the $1000~ savings to book a vacation to the Caribbean instead.
I had fallen for the future proof fallacy when even than, the savings could have been used to buy another new MacBook Air in 3-4 years which would be newer than whatever 'future proofing' I can do now. I would rather buy a new and updated MacBook Air every 4 years with the savings than budget for a Pro model every 7-9 years.
I noticed no difference between using the Pro and Air at all, at least not worth $1000. This sub convinced me that the Air is what 99% of the population would need and is very powerful as is!
I bought a new 16" M2 pro, 16/512 Gb a few days ago for the same price as a 15" M2 air 16/512 now. For the reasons you wrote above. It will replace a 13" pro retina from early 2013 and I expect to replace it not before 2030. And the old retina I hand down to my kids for homework. The last time I spent 2000 bucks on a windows laptop were totally gone in 5 years.