I completely empathize with what you’re describing @ENLeaver! Probably the 2 most “powerful” yet “terrifying” plugins I use on a regular basis are MetaData Menu (similar to MAKE.md) and Linter. Both can be extremely powerful and helpful, but if you don’t fully understand what changes you are making or what other possible outcomes those changes might have, then they can possibly cause serious “damage” to your notes. And I say “damage” because I don’t consider it actual damage like deleting your entire vault. I mean more like a YAML field might get duplicated in the frontmatter and now I have to spend hours deleting that duplicated field from every single note in my vault. Needless to say, I learned my lesson. haha And in those situations, it’s been a life saver having a recurring backup that automatically backups my notes such as GitHub or Obsidian Sync.
Bottom line: Approach plugins slowly and cautiously. That’s my new motto. haha Try making changes to one note, then one subfolder, then one folder, etc. I also would suggest when using a test vault, use a blank test vault. Don’t just copy your current vault (at least not the settings). It’s much simpler to diagnose an issue you’re having with a plugin when you don’t need to take into consideration how a particular change might affect other plugins you have installed, as well.
Good luck and godspeed! 