Thank yo all for your valuable contributions. I prefer to focus on a PCie wireless network card as going that is most compatible with my current use case. Also it seems more related to the thread we are in.
I have used OpenWrt WAPs and find that for me I'd like to see if I can avoid having additional components to worry about in terms of hard/software
Just a simple numbers game, taking compex' wifi6 wireless cards (QCA QNC9074):
2.4 GHz, ~200 USD
5 GHz, ~250 USD
6 GHz, 250 USD
Compared to complete ipq807x devices with at least dual-band (starting ~70 USD for the ax3600, but the higher end ones are more like 300-400 USD; or around 100 USD for the rt3200/ e8450).
I have a silverstone mini pci-e network card to pci-e interface adapter on the way https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=561&area=en
As well as
[WiFi6 4T4R Dual Bands Selectable mPCIe Card IEEE802.11ax / ac / a / b / g / n 2.4G / 5GHz MT7915 AW7915-NP1]