Weekend project, my back hurts already. Though to be honest it always hurts.
Took a bit longer than expected and had to break out the router to fix the edges but desk top came out OK.
If only cables weren’t a thing.
Headphone setup ended up 👍.

The plan has been to get a heavy duty VESA mount and put up my oldish 49” monitor. Plan worked but…

... I forgot two things: 1. How ridiculously large this monitor is. 2. How terrible VA looks on Mac.

I really don't want to spend the $$$ on another 38" monitor but seems like the least worst choice (don't want to spend $2k on the Dell 6k either).

Resisting... If Dell's refurb warranty wasn't so terrible I'd have a lot more trouble.
Another option. 1/2 the price of the Dell and more usable screen space. But, in my experience, 140PPI is a bit of an uncanny valley resolution wise and deco gear isn't the first name I think of when thinking of quality monitors.
https://www.amazon.com/Deco-Gear-Ultrawide-Monitor-5120x2160/dp/B0CLHDCHLC
Amazon.com

I ended up ordering the Dell refurb. It came today but the built in web camera got smashed up in shipping (though seems to be functional). Tried to do a replacement but they said it was out of stock (which I don't thinks is true), so back it goes.

Really disappointed, I'd consider re-ordering but the packing job was so bad I'm not willing to risk it, no idea why they didn't send it in with the original box.

The monitor itself is super nice, like an extra large iMac 27" 5k, it’s super sharp.

Given the Dell 6k refurb failure I went back to the drawing board. 27" 4k + 1080p 15" portable monitor. I doubt this will last, but having a hard time coming up with anything else to try.
@paul i have two of these 27" 4k... can't use different resolution screens, always annoys me.