I think one thing that might help is for those who wrote old tutorials involving menuhax+RXTools, et al should go back and edit those threads (if possible) and place a notice at the top that they should consult Plailect's guide instead with a link to it, for all the newcomers who arrive here through Google searches. I'm not saying to remove the existing tutorial, but definitely place a notice at the top that's hard to miss so at least they know it's outdated.
Back in June when I bought a used O3DS XL off eBay I googled CFW info and came upon many threads that were tutorials for outdated CFWs and I had one of them bookmarked, and it involved using rxTools via Menuhax, it was only by digging deeper that I saw A9LH+Luma3DS as the superior option. I think there are a lot of cases like that where someone is inclined to just follow the first thread they find on Google instead of digging deeper.
I did A9LH when downgrading to 2.1 was still quite risky and the Plailect guide was MUCH more time consuming as a result of the extra steps needed just for 2.1. The whole having to format multiple times because of fragmentation or whatever potentially causing a brick (before ctr transfer was a thing). Though I am not completely new to the concept of softmods since I was around here during the Wii days which also had its fair share of brick risks.
Hell, I almost bought a Sky3DS or Gateway (I forgot which) before realizing CFW was possible. If a discount code that was listed on RetailMeNot had worked, I would've been out $50 for a 3DS flash card. Thankfully, the code didn't work and I was unwilling to pay the non-discount price, so I bailed and it lead me to learning that CFW was possible.
One caveat though regarding FIRM protection I feel should be stated (complacency): If Nintendo *really* wanted to, they could find a counter-exploit to potentially override the memory patches and thus overwrite FIRM. But given their history of ineptitude when it comes to "fixing" softmods, I doubt it will happen. Still, you shouldn't become complacent enough to update immediately to new Nintendo firmwares. I am still on 11.0 and waiting another 4-5 days before I update to 11.1 despite having verified NAND backups kept securely in online file storage.
So, in other words, don't assume the FIRM protection cannot be circumvented. But it's better than no such protection at all. And of course, *always* do a NAND backup BEFORE updating -- and verify that the hash of the .bin file matches after copying it to your computer using any number of hashing software utilities available. Keep an off-site backup of it (Google Drive, OneDrive, et al).
