Newb Fishing questions

[GkT]

So, as I stated in an introductory in another post, I've fished before, but it was when I was younger, and there was no technique or attention to technology involved. It was much more...grab dusty spinning rod out of garage, put sliding sinker rig on it with some mussel or squid for bait, and chuck it in the lagoon. no thought of rigging, line weight/type, technique, etc. That said, fish were caught.

So now, being older and having the attention span to care about things like having the proper gear, I'm finding there is a huge amount of information and technology that I have no idea about.

I didn't know about braided line, that is COOL.
I knew what flouro was but never what it was for.
I never used anything but spinning reels until now---baitcasters are cool!
A fishing rod was a fishing rod, that was that. Never thought about action/weight/composition etc. Same with reels.
and the list goes on...

I had the local tackle dude set me up with his suggestions for a decent bay/lagoon Bass setup. I ended up with a 7'6 Shimano Sellus rod (freshwater? didnt know till i did some research at home afterwards) and an Abu Garcia BMAX2, Spooled with 30lb braid and a lighter (15lb?) mono leader. Seemed logical enough for me. Seems like braided line is the new standard.

I'm assuming that an offshore (say if I was to be going after bigger stuff, YT, WSB, etc) would just be a heavier version of this combo?

There are tons of conventional/baitcasting reels. Different sizes, brands, models. Is there ones to stay away from? or a go-to standard?
Am I destined to be paying $600 for a dependable combo? or can you get away with moderately priced stuff. ( I very much believe in 'you get what you pay for' but there are exceptions)

I'm just trying to get my head around all this technology and terminology that is all new. I also don't want to get taken for a ride on buying a bunch of expensive crap if I'm not gonna be using it, or I can get away with paying a little less.

I tried searching for some of these questions, but these seem pretty broad, all the answers I found were very specific to one particular brand of something or another. So sorry if this is a repeat post. I TRIED