I feel like holding less than 1m sats on chain might not work out well.

LN to L-BTC might be a good option as you can build your stack cheaply and possibly wait for a good rate to go on chain.

Other LN mobile wallets could also be used for instant TX. Then there's fedimints & ecash coming soon. Maybe Ark and other options further down the track.

What is pegging?

Through second layers, the problem? They don't work (nearly good enough to be used by seasoned users, let alone new ones).

I've taken this approach as well recently. You have to consider several things.

Primary goal is to buy and store securely. Nobody disagrees on this. Its just how you go about this. Depending on how much you save and put aside each month towards your stack, this will determine how hard you get "pegged" (haa see what i did there?) by on chain fees if you avoid layer 2 entirely. For example, if I buy $50 this week, I definitely don't want to leave it on an exchange (thats rule #1). It would be best to store it on chain BUT my $50 with current on chain fees would easily turn into $20 worth of bitcoin. Lightning requires you have enough liquidity if youre self hosting, and many people who cant afford more than a bit per month, and dont have preexisting mounds, or have simply grown to realize that lightning is still experimental and youre much more likely to lose your funds will trying to figure it out...what are those guys supposed to do? What does onboarding look like with high transaction fees and less access to custodial lightning like alby and WoS?

I've begun using liquid as a means of stacking, with the intention of moving it to cold storage once it hits a particular amount where the on chain fee is manageable. Everyone keeps screaming "dont trust, be self sovereign" when theyve never looked at the code themselves for their wallets or hardware signers to verify there isnt backdoor access, and while i appreciate the constant reminder to be wary of thieves, you have to give people reasonable resources so they can build themselves a roadmap considering their situation. The alternative is not buying bitcoin and holding fiat in a bank lol. Remember where we came from.

I consider liquid more secure than experimental lightning, having run multiple different recommended ln nodes and wallets only to have experienced bugs that cause me to lose millions of sats, on multiple different ocassions. but THANK THE LORD i wasnt rugged by a custodial, am i right?

Liquid has been good to us (so far), i recognize the possibility, though small, of federated rugging, however, i cant imagine holding as much in liquid at one time as ive lost using 'unruggable' lightning options.