Bodacious Cowboy

Disadvantage: you have bought something from the evil empire that is Amazon.

Actually the total set tension for Greens is exactly the same as Golds, according to the Pirastro website (assuming silver-wound G for both sets: with the gold-wound G, the EPGold set is very slightly lower tension than EP (23.0 kg vs 23.1 kg)).

Ivory black and lamp black aren’t the same. Lamp black has a hint of blue, which is helpful, I think.

I almost always use just 4 colors: Indian yellow, alizarin crimson, lamp black and burnt umber.

What Brad said. It's nothing. Sometimes makers make more damage than this deliberately, as part of an antiquing strategy. Pet hate of mine, but you just have to deal with it.

Well, they look about twice as tall as I would make them, but I’m not very smart, so I’m probably missing something.

Very snazzy. Is there a reason why the pillars are so tall?

Some nice stuff, don't get too carried away with the fake dirt... And wear safety glasses when operating machinery.

Very nice. What's the length?

With the way things are at the moment (and seem likely to continue) I think you'd have to be a complete violin obsessive to want to make this career change. Saner people are probably contemplating moves in the opposite direction.

Jacob's comments may be blunt, but they're far from silly. This is an excellent summary of how it is.

You make that sound like a fate worse than death!

I'm a great believer in the adage: "if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room".

I've seen some astonishing work produced by first year VM school students. I wouldn't assume that the OP would be way ahead and/or wasting their time.

It's impossible to give even semi-sensible advice without knowing what your current standard is. Can you show some photos?