What wheels will you be using? Those sill look like they would get wheel-bite on most setups without thick riser pads. You could get some extension brackets from @IDEA or someone that would completely eliminate that problem, but you’ll have a pretty long deck then
Anyway, a carbon fiber deck seems like a cool choice, especially since your ESC will be top mounted, so the CF won’t interfere with your remote signal. Some people here have builds with hi5ber decks, you could look them up for inspiration!
Huh, not a bad price for those. However with pneumatic wheels no amount of risers will save you. If the trucks are wide enough, maybe. You might just have to buy a deck and test it out to know for sure.
No, in essence, you spent 3 days doing that because of fixation.
There is nothing so broken in 5.2 that one absolutely needs 5.3 immediately to ease the unsafe conditions caused by the most ancient of firmwares (hyperbole).
I deal with fixation myself. Fortunately as I’ve aged it’s lessened, but there have been sleepless nights and monnies spent simply because I couldn’t let something go or sit undone. And it’s taken its toll.
Remember that these are all hobby products, running on open source software, and new releases are largely untested despite them being “stable” releases.
While I sympathize with the frustration, it’s important to be honest with how you proceed with your hobby. That includes placing blame responsibly and learning from it however possible.
