Thanks for taking the time to type such a long reply :)
Now for my own XD
I understand how it's unreasonable to ask for 'budget' options on a site like this, but the reason I chose this site is because, between deck lists from card sites I've seen, people are absolutely willing to try out any tech choice they may have in mind. This mindset comes from the luxury of being allowed most (if not all) of the cards in yugioh's lifespan. I've only seen about 10 or so decks submitted to this site, but I felt that it's enough to come to this conclusion. Dammit, there's a Hieratic Toon deck here, of all things!
As you pointed out, the problem itself is card availability; budgets, cards being region-locked for the moment, or Tyler the Great Warrior (top-tier). Some of the interesting tech choices I've seen on this site don't necessarily cost a million bucks, and are TCG-available. I don't see as many big eyes or dracossacks as I usually do, even though people have access to everything that's broken, haha.
The next issue pointed out comes with player skill: deck-building, play-making, winning cosplay contests...
I'm not judgmental when it comes to this (maybe except the cosplay part :p). The cards themselves are what matter to me and on ygopro, I see a great diversity of these; one of the most prominent and respected posters here seems to main Lightsworns, a deck I never see IRL (Fire-Fist/Chaos Dragon scene in Toronto) and rarely see online.
All this being said, the transferability between what I learn here and IRL is questionable, to say the least. If anything, it's just pleasant to see alternate points of view and different mindsets.
tl;dr: ygopro allows us to use cards and combos no sane person would use, and that creativity is exactly what i'm looking for 🙂