Quote - I disagree.  This guidance for hobbyists to experiment with what you have and see what you need down the road can be as discouraging as leading some into a vast desert and say, pick a path to get home. There must be experienced artists here who know a workable pipeline without using an Autodesk product, but EVERY tut I see engages some autodesk app some point.

Well, you clearly haven't been over to Blender-Cookie, then.

Quote -   I have tried many of the apps suggested, and while they do accomplish the features they advertise all seem like 80 percent solutions to me and require integration with some other app to produce results.

Depends on the results you're after. I get all the results I need from Blender, myself. others get what they need from Wings3D (for example, Antonia). It's not clear what results you're after.

Quote - It's this point you're left in the lurch trying to figure out whats needed, making the wrong choice and realizing you've headed down a dead end, or after retopoing, morphing, and rebuilding UV your mesh for the umpteenth times you're in a never ending circle.

Now, I'm really confused. You still haven't said what it is you're trying to create. What is this "result" you're after? Can you give an example?

Quote -   What we need is a concise, reference-able pipeline or complete specs on how to edit dae, obj and mtls by hand.

  Why?

Quote - I would prefer to edit by text than visually modifying with more 3d tools at this point.

Pretty sure you're not alone in this view.

3D was notorious for having really poor documentation, but things have improved a lot. The key is finding it. And yes: hard to find what you're after.

I tried to find a decent reference/answer to why the listindex property was giving me dramas in VBA - trying to set it in code would cause VB to spit the dummy... so I googled it, and found pages and pages of questions that were never answered. So, it's not limited to 3D stuff.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks