Your not supposed to just trust it. Your supposed to test the solution it gives you. Yes that makes it not useful for some things. But still immensely useful for other applications and a lot of times it gives you a really great jumping off point to solving whatever your problem is.
I use a Beelink with an N100. Runs PopOs. I use Plex HTPC on it. Hardware decoding isnt working at the moment but it plays everything fine except HDR content so I’m avoiding that at the moment. Pass through audio work perfectly. I also stream sports on it, play mini games and roms with my kids using Lutris, and Moonlight for the more demanding games.
I used to use Kodi/LibreElec on it but that was such a miserable experience. Constant crashing and (3 or 4 times per day) inconsistent glitchy audio passthrough. The plex integration does mostly work but would also occasionally crash resulting in my stuff not syncing back to the server for days. Playback worked perfectly though.
What’s your hardware for your HTPC? Does hardware decoding work in Plex HTPC flatpak for you?