Welcome back to music!
I think you made a fine choice by selecting the AR as your piece of gear to work with for awhile. I am enjoying mine immensely and the depth/potential of this machine is quite inspiring.
I am not going to say the AR is the only piece of gear that I would own as I REALLY love my modular BUT I am going to build a live set centered around the AR. I don’t need to drag around my modular when I can load my own samples/loops of it into the AR.
I am so glad the AR is pretty much what I had hoped. I am sure that you can take your time and get really creative with it and exploit it to it’s full potential and be quite a happy camper too.