In my experience, almost all stability problems I’ve had with Home Assistant are either due to the devices (not HA or the hardware I’m running it on, individual lights and switches, etc) or dead batteries in same.
What protocols are you using for your devices? Zigbee, Zwave, Wifi, something else?
I don’t use it, but my impression is that people who prefer MQTT either have a lot of other devices already working that way, or use additional programs like Node Red to handle some of what HA can also do which require MQTT.
The first part is very understandable, as that’s pretty much why all of us likely end up with a favorite protocol! I didn’t really plan to be mostly using Zigbee and Hue devices, but now that it’s the case I am going to keep going in that direction even more.
If you already have a Hue hub, you can integrate with that from HA without new hardware or a direct connection. That is what I do for some of my Hue bulbs, but I do also have a Zigbee radio plugged into my Home Assistant Blue hardware as I have non-Hue Zigbee devices, too.
My experience is that Hue devices are the most reliable of everything I have in terms of both response time and connection. Zigbee devices vary a lot in quality, but my biggest issue are some switches that occasionally (but repeatedly) have to be re-paired, but generally as long as HA recognizes the device the reaction time and reliability of Zigbee is pretty solid.
Depends on what we mean by “space”, but IMO this sentiment is much more contemporary than what someone living in the space-based luxury we see from Starfleet would think.