Help with buying a low to mid range grinder, is DF64 always the answer? [$200-450]

Hi,

I am an espresso drinker, medium to dark roast, it will be paired primarily with Cafelat Robot.

Other than price & performance, my next criteria is reliability and easy maintenance. I just switched to the Robot from GCP because I was sick of boiler issues and constantly having to take it apart, love the ease of the Robot, don't want to swap one problem for another by getting a grinder I need to baby. It needs to just work.

Looks are also important, the ones I mention below all look nice to me, but I don't like for example the look of Eureka Mignon Zero so much.

I do want an electric, I did look at 1Zpresso and understand it gives amazing results but can't be bothered with manual.

I was looking at a few different options and pricepoints:

- DF64 Gen 2, $360, obviously comes highly recommended

- Varia VS3, $270, most people seem to prefer the DF64 but there is definitely a subset who prefer this

- DF54, $215, this also comes recommended and seems fine for what I need and I'm not sure if the difference to DF64 is worth the higher price tag?

- Turin SK40, $199

- Fellow Opus 2, $200

The main difference with the bottom 2 seems to be the conical burrs vs flat on on the top 3. I assumed flat must be better but was thrown a bit by reading this somewhere on the sub:

"flat burrs will produce a more unimodal grind which will be more floral and acidic compared to a conical grinder"

I don't think I'm really looking for floral and acidic, more like smooth, rich, full-bodied etc.

So what would you buy?

Bonus question, on DF54/64, do I want tbe red titanium or stainless steel burrs. Price difference isn't big.