After 2 years of regular usage for my 12 mini I can confirm battery life was a problem. In fact it was the main reason I got a new phone.
Realistically I would have been fine with a non pro model but I ended up getting a 14 Pro for the high refresh rate.
I've used it on a couple of headless machines over the years primarily as a host for docker containers. It's been mostly great but those few times it has broken was really annoying. Nothing I couldn't fix and never needed to reinstall though.
That being said I'll be reconfiguring soon and I thinking about switching away and using Debian.
Quick bangs alone almost make it worth it for me. The functionality exists in other browsers but it's not synced, so being universal in the search engine itself is a giant usability improvement for me. Especially when using in conjunction with Orion.
I've long been trying to de-googlify myself, but it's certainly ramped up this year.
Been trying out Kagi and just set up proton mail account. Not sure what I'll land on in the end but it's nice trying out newer services.