@mos_8502 I'm in the same position, especially when work likes to take up 60-70 hours of my week.
Sure, I could fuss around with Proxmox, KVM or Xen on any random piece of hardware; but, I know ESXi, it is easy to get up and running, even on a Pi.
I could have picked up a passively cooled machine and throw pfSense or OPNsense on there; but, I opted for a turnkey NetGate appliance.
Time is worth a lot more than money for me right now; so, I'm willing to spend a bit more and have something ready to rock within 30 minutes vs futzing around for 2 hours.
I would DIY a lot of stuff back when I was 18-30; but, no longer.