Michael Barnes

2-3 weeks is plenty if you actually sit down and do it. honestly the General pool isnt dramatically harder than Tech, theres just more of it. the band privileges stuff you'll pick up pretty fast because it actually makes sense once you see why the bands are split up the way they are. the part that trips people up is usually the electrical theory, like the reactance and impedance stuff. if you glazed over that on the Tech exam it comes back with a vengeance on General lol
i used hamexam.org and just drilled practice tests every night for like two weeks. by the end i was consistently hitting 85-90% and i passed no problem. the real exam felt easier than the practice ones honestly. dont overthink the band plan stuff, they basically ask you things like what frequencies are phone privs on 40m for general class, and if you just use the bands a little before the test it kind of sticks naturally

the straight key vs paddle debate comes up a lot and honestly both camps have valid points but in my experience learning on a straight key first isnt going to ruin you. lots of great CW ops started that way. what WILL hurt you is practicing bad rhythm, like sending sloppy dashes or uneven spacing, so if youre being careful about that youre probably fine
on the keyer side, you really dont need to spend big money to start. a lot of rigs have a built in keyer these days, does yours? if it does just grab a cheap set of paddles to start, something like the MFJ-564 or even one of the cheaper ones from China on ebay, plenty of people have learned on those before upgrading. the Begali stuff is gorgeous but yeah thats more of a "ive been doing this for 20 years and want something nice" purchase
the 10wpm wall is pretty common, dont get discouraged. a lot of people say bumping your practice speed up a bit even when you cant copy everything forces your brain to recognize characters as sounds rather than counting dots and dashes. worth trying

honestly the hardest part is just keying up that first time, after that its totally fine. most nets just want your callsign phonetically and then just unkey and wait. some nets you also give your name and location but a lot of them the net control will ask for that after you check in. just listen to how other people are doing it for a few minutes before your turn and copy what they do, you'll get the hang of it really fast. net control folks are used to new people checking in, they wont care if you fumble it a little. the main thing is dont hold the key down too long when you give your call, just say it once clearly and let go.
also if the net has a specific format sometimes theyll announce it at the top of the net, so pay attention to the preamble when it starts. some of the more formal traffic nets want things in a specific order but a casual 2m ragchew net is usually pretty relaxed about it.

which jumper location did you use exactly, J4011 or the one closer to the mic connector? i tried this on mine about a year ago and i swear i used the right one but i still had issues on 60m specifically. everything else opened up fine but 60m tx was flaky. ended up just leaving it and havent gone back in since but your post is making me want to try again

ran basically this exact experiment a few years ago. had a 40m dipole at 35 feet and put up a DX Engineering radial plate with a hustler 4BTV after debating it forever. short answer is they both have their moments and its really angle of radiation that matters most.
for closer stuff, 500-1500 miles, the dipole at that height was consistently better, higher angle radiation works in its favor there. but when i was trying to work JA or anything eu on 40 at night the vertical had a clear edge most of the time. not dramatic, maybe an S unit or so, but real. the catch is i had 32 radials down and spent a weekend doing it right. without a solid radial field the vertical was noticeably worse and i woulda stuck with the dipole.
if youre only doing 16 radials id honestly add more before drawing conclusions. theres a reason everyone says radials radials radials, its not just people repeating stuff, it actually matters a lot for a ground mounted vertical.

same situation as you were a while back lol. i finally just sat down one afternoon and did the LoTW setup following a youtube video step by step and it wasnt as bad as i thought, took maybe an hour including waiting for the email confirmation from ARRL. once its done its done. eQSL took like 10 minutes so i did that too just because why not.
havent sent any paper cards yet but ive recieved a few from people i worked during a contest and they are pretty cool to have on the desk ngl