Great! Glad this is all working and that it was a worthwhile learning exercise!
Depends on your goals. I recommend being very careful about the limits you put on your administrative access -- too strict and you will accidentally lock yourself out and you might need to use failsafe to 'recover' from that issue.
There are basically 3 equivalent ways of setting (most) things... LuCI, UCI commands, or direct file edits. I personally find that the direct file edits are easiest (as you also seem to have found), but there are times when UCI commands are better suited for certain situations (like scripting the changes), and some people find UCI useful because it does have a certain amount of syntax validation before it will apply a setting. But you should absolutely use the method you find most comfortable.
In the meantime... if you'd like us to review your config, please post it here:
Please connect to your OpenWrt device using ssh and copy the output of the following commands and post it here using the "Preformatted text </> " button:
Remember to redact passwords, MAC addresses and any public IP addresses you may have:
ubus call system board
cat /etc/config/network
cat /etc/config/wireless
cat /etc/config/dhcp
cat /etc/config/firewall
Otherwise...
If your problem is solved, please consider marking this topic as [Solved]. See How to mark a topic as [Solved] for a short how-to.
Thanks! 