How much magnification do I actually need before things get ridiculous?

Most people I know work at the low end of the zoom range and only crank it up to look at somethig, not to actually solder under it. On my scope that means sitting around 7-10x most of the time. That's enough to see a 0402 clearly while still keeping the whole pad, the iron tip, and some surrounding board in frame. When I'm replacing a connector or checking for a lifted pad, I'll zoom in to maybe 20x, do the inspection, then drop back down before I touch the iron. Working zoomed all the way in is miserable because your field of view shrinks to almost nothing and any tiny hand movement sends everythign flying off screen. Your instinct from the loupe expirience is correct, same logic applies here, just with way better optics and depth of field.

I got one of those camera scopes last year too and the thing that surprised me was how much light you need through the lens. My board looked dark and washed out untill I stuck a small desk lamp next to it, now it's way easier to see the shiny spots where the solder actually flowed.

Also for the stand question, mine is the fixed pole kind and honestly flipping a board under it is a bit of a pain, I have to slide the whole thing up. Is the swinging arm type wobbly when you touch the board, or does it stay put?

Gotta push back on the idea that soldering at higher zoom is automatically miserable. I do most of my fine work around 15x and never touch the iron at low zoom, becuase at 7x I genuinely can't see if the pad is wetting properly until I've allready made the joint. The 'hand movement sends everything flying' thing only happens if you're hovering your hands in mid air. Brace your pinky or forearm on the bench and the board barely moves. diffrent workflows I guess, but cranking down every time I pick up the iron would drive me nuts.

Following this one closely since I do watch repair with a cheap USB camera on a monitor, and the thing that gets me is the slight lag between moving the part and the image catching up. Curious if the scope camera outputs have the same delay or if it's just the cheap ones. Makes tweezer work weirdly hard when your hands are a half second ahead of your eyes. Also totally get the neck thing, I did years hunched over a jeweler's loupe and my shoulders were wrecked by the end of a session. Hoping the proper setup fixes that for both of us.

One thing I wish I'd known before buying mine is how much the working distance matters. My first setup had the lens so low I kept bumping the board on it when moving tweezers around, and I melted a bit of plastic on the scope once from holding the iron too high. Ended up putting the head higher on the pillar and just accepting slightly less magnification. Also grab a cheap sticky mat for the bench, the number of tiny screws and pads that go flying while you're learning to work under magnification is unreal.