Hooboy...this thread is fun.
Let's start from the top: There is no "leveling up", imo, when it comes to writing experience unless the pen you got first was a piece of garbage. Flex/italic/stub/architect are all
personal preferences and one is no better than the other in that regard.
I prefer medium to fine size nibs that range from nails to pleasant flexiness. The one stub I've had, I did not like as it was too broad for my taste (TWSBI 1.1mm nib). "Leveling up", just like the games that inspire the phrase, is very dependant on the character, class, and goals of the player. Does most of your writing happen at a desk at home or at a busy job? Do you use your pen for
everything or correspondence/journaling? Do you want something hefty that feels powerful in the hand or something light that allows the hand to dance gracefully over a page? What about visual appeal? Do you want a large amount of ink that you don't change often or the ability to swap out many colors of ink in relatively short succession? Many questions that only
you personally can answer. There is no power-levelling in pen use/collecting, not really anyhow.
Regarding other things: some steel nibs are tipped, some are not. Lamy nibs
are tipped (See here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jf3...youtu.be&t=145). The polishing and shape of that material will largely determine the writing experience. This includes if there are any micro pocks in the tipping that won't change the writing experience regardless the polishing. When it comes to gold vs steel it really comes down to preference, to a certain degree. I feel that I can use whatever ink I wish with impunity using a gold nib. This is not the case with steel. In terms of aesthetics, I just don't like steel nibs. On that token, I also don't like rhodium plated gold nibs
visually unless the rhodium is used as accents (see: Visconti).
The tipping is likely not iridium and, in all truth, even vintage nibs marked as being iridium tipping only contained a percentage of iridium :
https://www.vintagepens.com/FAQbasics/iridium.shtml
and
https://www.nibs.com/blog/nibster-writes/wheres-iridium
Regarding the Lamy 2000: A design in continuous production for over half a century has to be doing something right. Not my personal preference in look, but you can't argue with its popularity across decades.
If you can, get to a brick and mortar (or be cool buying and selling large numbers of pens to try various sizes/nibs/materials) and try as many pens as you can to find what works best
for you and, possibly more importantly, have a good idea of what those attributes actually are. What makes a pen "perfect" to
you.
Anyhow, good luck.
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