That’s a lot to wrap one’s head around. What I think is that you haven’t quite figured out how to do what you want yet, and the sign of that is your frustration with your own design as it intersects with ST. In some ways ST is a puzzle that unfortunately isn’t the most obvious one to solve, and probably isn’t what you expected. @geko’s suggested reading is a good place to start. I spun my wheels for a while until the pieces fell in place along the lines of what ST has in mind. Modes are quite powerful, although by their very nature limiting (unless you want a whole bunch of them and the attendant complexity). I get by with 3 primary modes (Home, Evening, and Night), all established by Hello Home phrases that run at Sunrise, Sunset and late at night, and a “dummy” mode, that alters certain behaviors when I go to bed (which is usually before my wife, hence the extra mode). I also only have one smart app that cares about the mode (i.e., location.mode is subscribed to) that adjusts dimmer levels at mode changes (one app with many instances). I do make extensive use of limiting other apps based on mode (i.e., Only when mode is…), and some based on time (Only during a certain time), and of course several scheduled things.
I think you are going down the wrong path to care about which phrase is used or to load complexity onto phrases. Phrases are just apps, that’s all they are. Use the “Automatically perform ‘Phrase’ when…” option to fire the phrases. I only have 5 phrases (Good Morning, Good Evening, Good Night, Goodbye, and I’m Back), and everything I want to accomplish works great within that overall framework of modes and phrases.
Look at this post by Alex, ST’s CEO, about how his own house works. It’s very similar to what I’m doing, only customized to his situation, as mine is customized to my situation.