Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly this is the kinda stuff that put me off Godot. A million ways to do things and they all seem bad or feel like they’re going to shoot me in the foot later. Somehow I never had these issues in Unity
Are there any Godot FAQs or documentation with "blessed" paths for the various mainstay gamedev needs?!
So the project I just looked at had 3 types of platforms that I could tell:
The level was made up primarily of a tile map. It had its own collision set in the resource per tile and represents the most copy-cut type platforms you’re likely to see
Then there was a static body tile, which had a polygon2d shape, used to create an irregular platform that would have been more painful (maybe near impossible) to make in the tile map.
Finally, there were two moving platforms that were instances in as scenes.
So the big revelation for me today is that I need to not get hung up on doing any one conceptual thing anyone one way. Any (seemingly minor) difference in fundamentals about what that thing is or does may lead to another basic node type being the best thing to use. I need to not be afraid of making use of more varied tools, even if things feel like they should be all just be the same simple thing in the head.