To be pedantic, there is no 6e. Just 6A. I am looking at a spool labelled 6e as I type this, but that’s just a manufacturer thing, not an actual spec.

I tried for a while to use two 16:9 vertically. Like you say, vertical makes a lot of sense and it works great. But web devs seem universally to assume that if it’s a tall narrow screen, to show the mobile version.

They’re there, but harder to find. And some are closing. I’ve had two or three in the last couple years that closed, in the reasonably popular world of cars.

That’s the problem isn’t it? We used to have forums where people discus things and blogs where people share what they’ve learned, now it is all Reddit and discord and absolute trash in between.

What sort of isp supplied residential equipment doesn’t block inbound connections? Pedantically, you’re correct.

You have a firewall. It’s in your router, and it is what makes it so that you have to VPN into the server. Otherwise the server would be accessible. NAT is, effectively, a firewall.

Should you add another layer, perhaps an IPS or deny-listing? Maybe it’s a good idea.