Sounds like you’re getting everything under control. If you’re interested, as a former field tech I can put up a post on best practices for laying out a smartthings network that will give you the best performance long-term, and that would address some of the questions you asked in your first post, but it will be pretty technical and I don’t know if you’re still interested. So just let me know. 
You might also find the following community FAQ of interest. First read post 11, which I will link directly to, then go up to the top of that thread and read the whole thing.