I do agree that some of the posts have unneeded aggressiveness.
I only mentioned a TC in regards to your adding a button to the home page. This has already been demonstrated by several components. If it is not a security issue a TC is the way to go.
Though I myself would be interested in what issues you have with Themes & Theme components? Plugins are more for security and things that cannot be accomplished within a TC - like changing how core functions. If your more comfortable we could discuss this in a friendly pm.
Another benefit of the TC is you could edit your code when needed within site web UI.
The problem I see with plugin route is that even official plugins merged in core still use Git to update the plugins & discourse itself.