Am I wrong to believe that I am a baritone because I yell/flip/crack at C4-D4 when I started singing 12 years ago? I really want to sing this song in its original key and have been practicing it for more than 12 years already. This year, I began to be able to hit the chorus of Open Arms in mixed voice. It's far from being acceptable to ears but I'm eager to hear your insights on how I could improve especially on the chorus.

If you agree that I am really a baritone, I think it is worth sharing what I did for the past 12 years since A4 - B5 note is very hard to hit in this tessitura.

1. I literally sang the chorus in falsetto or very nasal way so I can hit the A4-B4 notes.
2. In my free time, I vocalize A4-B4 in falsetto or very nasal way until my voice become tired. I notice that the next day my voice improves a little bit. I did this for \~3 years.
3. I developed a reinforced falsetto and able to sing the chorus on that way.
4. In my free time, I try to vocalize the reinforced falsetto at A4-B4 note. This reinforced falsetto sounds very small, very nasal and distorts vowels too much. I try to vocalize in a way that I'm changing tone of my voice from reinforced falsetto to a OH-ish tone that is bigger-sounding (open vowels) an less nasal and that required me to use very little air and vocalize in very low volume that is not audible to people around. I vocalize that way until my voice becomes tired. I did this for \~6 years.
5. I eventually developed a shouty/twangy voice that's able to hit A4-B4 but only able to do open vowels (AH and OH) and I flip/crack on closed vowels (IH, OOH). This literally sounds like a duck quacking at chorus, very ugly.
6. In my free time, I try to vocalize this shouty/twangy voice at A4-B4 at very low volume on closed vowels (IH and OOH). And this became the significant milestone on my vocal training journey. After \~3 years of vocalizing that, I finally able to hit A4 and above on mixed voice on both closed and open vowels. There's a caveat: my voice requires me to put the mic so close to my mouth and the mic to have sufficient volume to hear me at mid volume. If I sang on karaoke bar that has low mic volume, I flip to falsetto. Another caveat is I need to sing A4-B4 in poker face expression. If i try to put emotions on my face, the sound of my voice becomes more distorted and it makes it harder to reach top notes.

How can a baritone improve in the chorus of Open Arms by Journey?