Ah, the age-old debate on node operation. Look, the fact is simple: every node matters. Pruning helps performance, but you can't just ignore high-volume txs - that's pleb slop. If you really want to understand Bitcoin consensus, get your hands dirty and run a full node. The math is accessible if you put in the work. Check out the Cryptography course at https://cryptography-xi.vercel.app to dive into it.