No junk food at all. More grist for the iPad decision mill. Thanks.
Your wife’s security blanket Mac sounds like a sensible approach, if you can tear the blanket from her hands. 
The 11” IPad for work?. Good question. I find it wonderful for emails, handwritten notes, speaking notes, reading etc. It is also fantastic for the odd movie, streaming music. I am not a gamer so that aspect is irrelevant for me.
For more comprehensive work needing two apps such as referencing information from one document (app)/webpage whilst editing in another app such as Pages, it is functional but not delightful. The reduced screen size just makes the process feel a little cramped. That’s where the 13” excels.
I also don’t spend much time using the 11” or 13” connected to a monitor. It works well enough but there is still a clunky aspect (possibly my lack of familiarity) which deters me.
The IPad just feels like a device which needs to be set free from the desk and is a do anything, anywhere, anytime device. A device though which you can happily use in the Magic Keyboard at a desk, with or without an external monitor.
Finally, there is something ineffable about the Ipad which for me makes it a “light and breezy” machine whilst sitting down to my laptop, as rare as that is, engenders a sense of focused intent on what I am doing - a “I am here to get real work done not read, surf the net, or write simple emails”. That’s a mind set not a device aspect but possibly arises from having started with Mac’s years ago.
This discussion inclines me to agree with Apple that the IPad is a companion device not a primary device. I appreciate that leisure users, retirees and younger people wouldn’t share my view and that the IPad is a suitable only device for them. Interestingly my late teen daughter, who has a MacBook Air and IPad, barely if ever uses her IPad and uses her MBA as an all purpose device, carrying it everywhere like an IPad.
Perhaps when I no longer use a company laptop my views will change and the MBA will play a greater role. In the interim, I find the 11” a great adjunct device.
So more succinctly put, the 11” doesn’t offer the same benefit for work the 13”/12.9” does for me. On the flip side, the 13” is great for productivity but a tad too big to use comfortably for leisure reading. Perhaps I should try putting it in a folio case and not leave in the MK instead?
Our discussions on this topic have inspired me to try using my 12.9” iPad as an only device, once IpadOS 26 is released, and see where I land. Or I need to try connecting both the 11” and 12.9 to external monitor to become more adapt in that usage, and perhaps that makes an 11” best placed for productivity when needed. I may also consider a 13” and Kindle for leisure reading? Analysis paralysis……
I know you tried that experiment previously and eventually returned to your MBP. So, I look forward to hearing how you iPad0S26 trial of the IPad as an only device fairs.
I apologise that this has been a long and somewhat turgid post, and it could have benefited from a polish. But to quote Churchill, “I am sorry I didn’t have time to write you a shorter letter”.
