I was always lucky with port and connector alignment - I appreciated the jokes but never personally identified with them. My experience has been so frustrating

I was always lucky with port and connector alignment - I appreciated the jokes but never personally identified with them. My experience has been so frustrating and such a time sink if you have recommendations of working hardware combinations I'm happy to hear. I'm already > $3k in hardware at this point. What's another $1k or so?!