with Chrome/Arc/Edge being what they are, being able to get 24GB was a game changer for me - it allowed me to go back to an Air, which is definitely my preferred form factor.
That's kind of Apple's tiered upselling plan, isn't it? ;-/
But as an Apple user I concur completely. The awful experience of bloated apps (or multiple VMs) slowing your system to a crawl isn't worth the few hundred dollars you saved by opting for a lower memory SiP.
$400, while indeed a significant jump, absolutely is "a few hundred," given that $200 is "a couple hundred." In my reckoning, "a few hundred" starts around $250 and arguably runs up to $750, where "almost a thousand" could be said to start.
I never regret money spent on RAM....