Depends. Most the the job of a relay today isn’t querying your own events, it’s events of people you follow and conversations that stem from that. I’d suggest trying a paid relay before running your own.

Nostr.wine is decent.

And the key issue isn’t just one guys 250,000 self DMs, it’s 1,000 or 10,000 of people who do the same. And when we grow again by 10x or 100x. It hurts smaller relays the most.

A personal server can make sense as a local backup. It doesn’t need to be public.