Hi, there. And welcome to backstage!
I hope you’ll have as much fun with your Play+ as much as I have with mine.
I’m not sure I completely understand this statement. But I don’t use it for performance at all. It does so many other things as well.
I think so, yes. How do you envision doing it otherwise?
I think you cover the options quite well here. The good news is that with all the patterns and variations available, it’s quite possible to have a full set inside a single project, if you’re able to build it within the limitations of sample memory and synth patches available for a project.
Do the mentioned laptops happen to have AMD CPUs? There’s a known problem connecting things directly to an AMD based computer. A workaround, that at least works for me, is to use a powered USB-hub between the computer and the Play+ (I’m on Ubuntu).