This reply of me is Oftopic:
Sorry i don’t complain about Virtualmin.
Not only because we use free version for testing.
But still support takes time on this support forum also for free version users that is great.
Each panel has pluses and minus.
More expensive i have had serious trouble to have some security holes in time fixed, then fixed them myself but after such you are also no more a standard.
Also alsmost every panel if you needed to make them UX friendly and foolproof for a lot of things (virtualmin has a lot) is a hell of a job.
Therefore are people payd yep external or internal Programmers or sysadmins if someone or company can’t do it themselves.
That is how this bussiness is working while if working hours and resources and so on have to be payd.
Hiring is one thing, finding the right persons for the job in time is is much more difficult these days.
Experience here with more panels, and virtualmin is not doing a bad job, only if not used to it then it could be harder to do things right.
YEP DOCU is not always up to date sometimes even outdated they know this, in my opinion that is most important thing to have updated and for learning how virtualmin works, also developer docu. (if you are longer in IT you know that is often the case LEIDER).
Sorry for my gramar. 
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I try to give a liitle of my time to this forum, therefore i use Virtualmin free version.
I even don’t know or some need a programmer or real good sysadmin who knows how to script.
That automation if not used to it yup doing things you don’t expect while as i used to do settings in conf files myself and with yum and so on then it is a learning wich parts you can do or wich parts where you better should stay away if manual doing things in a other wat then virtualmin.
THAT is not that Virtualmin is bad, only is somehow different.
I readed a lot of your text KitchM, and i can understand your concerns, but look at it in a positive way as I do, doing things reading , making failures and so on is a very good thing to learn things the hard way but mostly better to remember then a fully simple automated click click system, i gues you learned a lot of IT server Admin extra also?
If someone looking for a almost 100% ready system perfect for their situation hmm. if this was already on the market at a reasonable price. they soon be the only with a almost 100% market monopol i’m sure
If someone is more alround IT as i 'm then you’re not very good on every part / topic, but knowing that for yourself gives some ahead of very good specialist in 1 part of IT.
( not the most perfect solution but though a working solution, is better then none or a to late… )
Far more important to choose for Virtualmin ( YUP unsuported i expect) you can choose a lot of things doing apprt form out of the box solution without breaking the complete panel and BOX.
You could have a running system with the PHP version you want, the Apache NginX version and Http2, PCI DSS compliant and even TLS 1.3 and many many more i gues, then though using parts of Virtualmin for more easy Serveradmin part, that is our test, the important parts should work, and backups are even more important going that way.
Be honest Virtualmin is not a 100 plus employees company, so don’t expect that they can handle so much as that sort of Company’s in time. ( FAIR)