Preface: I’m on my third cheap printer in the past ten years. I bought an Anycubic kobra neo a few years ago. I told myself I wouldn’t mess with doing anything to it, but I was running into issues because of low quality control. I put it away due to frustration for the past year and now needed to print something and just figuring out all the issues. Right now I’m looking into upgrading the part cooling fan as I cannot get rid of stringing even on low temps with PLA. I should just buy a good printer but I just don’t feel like I can justify it.
All I’ve done to my Prusa MK4 is change the part cooling shroud. Great out of the box. Been bringing on it over a year. Works great right away even after sitting for a month.
IMO, of you felt interested enough to go through 3 cheap printers, you ought to get a decent one. That feels like justification enough to me.