Who knocks on a wall at 2am over a plant? That is wild. Your neighbor Karen sounds like she has zero boundaries. But honestly the moisture meter thing is real. I killed two monsteras before I figured out wet soil 3 inches down means stop watering. Most people drown them with too much love. Still, she should not be showing up at your place in the middle of the night with her perlite stash. That is a different kind of plant parent.

The part about the extra pound of padding isn't quite right. A pound is a pound no matter where it sits in your pack, so 3 pounds versus 2 pounds is still one more pound on your back either way. What the shop guy actually did was move that weight off your shoulders, since a good hip belt transfers the load to your hips where your body can handle it way better. My first pack had almost no padding and a thin belt, and 25 pounds felt like 40 by mile 5. So the real fix was the frame and belt, not the padding itself.