If the filament comes in a resealable bag, I simply store the spool in there with some desiccant. For everything else, I use resealable 2-gallon bags with desiccant. My basement humidity is very stable around 30%, and I don’t really have issues. I’ve never dried filament before printing. That’s going on 6 years.
If you are used to using F360 or SolidWorks, this is the version of FreeCAD you should be using. It doesn’t have the TNP problems that the main branch has. Of course, just like commercial CAD, it’s possible to break models by deleting references, and you’ll have to fix them. Experienced users of CAD know this is always possible.
I’ve been using RealThunder’s branch of FreeCAD for a few years and I’m able to do whatever I want, pretty much just like I do in SolidWorks in my day job. Most of my time is spent in the PartDesign workbench, which is really what most people designing for 3D printing should be using.
Remember that you’re using software built and maintained by volunteers. If you want constant improvement, you’re better off paying people whose sole job it is to work on the software. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth paying for.
You don’t even have to touch any “advanced” modeling features for FreeCAD to be useful. I primarily use extrudes and revolves of sketches in the Part Design workbench. The workflow is exactly the same as what I do at work every day in SolidWorks.
FreeCAD doesn’t let you be as loosey-goosey with geometry as some commercial software. That’s because they don’t have an army of developers paid to work on “nicety” features like that.
I can break SolidWorks models the same way that I can break FreeCAD models. No CAD software is immune to this. Some fail more gracefully than others. It doesn’t mean it’s unusable. You should have seen the repairs I had to make to a SolidWorks model today because I needed to convert a generic extruded feature into a sheetmetal feature…. It took a few minutes, but it’s no different than fixing things in FreeCAD because you changed the design.