Whatever suits your work style is good. My experience is that the people who are fine with the SD card are those who have never had a good network interface, rarely do folks go back to SD after working with a networked printer. Does one use an SD card with their laser or inkjet printer?
My MK3 is so reliable I never baby step the first layer. Other than once after installing a new nozzle or doing alignment after mechanical work. After that it just prints every time. I do need to make sure the printer is clear and the filament loaded, then I can go fiddle with the slicer and send a print with a click, whether from the same room or from another room. I often start several prints a day, fiddling with the SD card just wastes time and energy for no useful purpose. I start prints from two different computers depending on where I'm working from. Prints take from 30 minutes to 9 hours generally for most of what I print. Once a print is started I occasionally check on progress, either with the camera or just by checking the progress info in Octoprint. Then I know whether I need to go in and remove the print and prepare for the next one. My printer is already 24V and has a heated bed that heats adequately fast, but if other upgrades are more useful clearly do those first. One should check on the printer during the first layer until it proves to be reliable, but the camera allows that to be done remotely. Most any old USB webcam will work fine. One can often buy USB laptop cameras without housings for $20 or less.
Raspberry Pi's are trickling out all the time, they make about 100,000 units per week. I have purchased several at list price in the last few months. If you have an old Pi around it is probably adequate. You can borrow a Pi from an old project and replace it later, use a new SD card and keep the old one for restoring. Big Tree Tech has a Pi replacement CM4 type board that some are using, the CB-1, and a carrier to make it like a standard Pi3. The Pi CM4 boards are more available than regular Pi's and can be used in a carrier or directly in some of the newer control boards like the Manta (for Klipper setups). Several batches of Pi boards were sold this morning at list price from a dealer in Germany. I generally wait for a US supplier and there are at 3-4 that have some boards each week or two. They sell out in 20 minutes so one has to prepare and react, but they are trickling out and the prices are only a little higher than before, usually around $40-50 for the smaller memory models which are fine for Octoprint.
Some people run Octoprint on an old computer, perhaps an old laptop that is not used anymore. It will run on most operating systems. One of the small computers will run it fine, and can drive more than one printer. Those little "mini" machines that are often used in businesses and sold cheaper than scalped Raspberry Pi's on the used market are popular. The Pi Zero 2 W at $15 is excellent, but those are not very easy to find. It's basically a Pi 3 on a half size board, so it can be put right on the printer. A $10 Pi Zero W works too but don't put a camera on that one.
Octoprint requires an operating system like Linux or Windows so not suitable for an ESP32 or a Pico. The pre-built systems including Octoprint and Linux are available for the Pi so those are far and away the easiest to install.
