What do we know about
The unknown knowns
The things we don’t know we know?

You don’t need Thunderbolt for Displayport alt mode. It’s a separate spec that can also be implemented independently. I have a dock that’s not Thunderbolt but supports DP alt mode.

But Thunderbolt has some additional stuff too

Last I heard Cinnamon does not have stable Wayland support yet. One of the reasons Wayland was made is because multi-screen support on the old X11 is an ugly hack. Unlike wayland, it doesn’t play well with screens of different resolutions, refresh rates, adaptive sync compatibility or HDR.

Mint isn’t wayland yet and X11 does not support adaptive sync if multiple monitors are connected

“USB4” (not USB 4.0) released in 2019 and “USB4 Version 2.0” (not USB 4.1) released in 2022.

The open source server allows unlimited connections I think. The point of the paid server is user & device management, shared address book and some other enterprise features