This is so helpful, I can almost feel your journey on discovering this path and great that you are keeping yourself pragmatic. Do you plan to stay indie or perhaps launch your own small studio in the future?
I think it's best to just do the right thing for the games I'm making. I already contract out some of the artwork and sound design. My games don't make enough money (yet) to pay someone a full-time salary, but if the project warrants it and I can reasonably forecast how much money the game is likely to make, I would definitely consider that option. So it's not like I would just decide to open a studio some day. It's more like there has to be a game that's getting enough traction to justify increased labor expense or some kind of outside funding situation where investors are asking me to give them a big return.