As far as photography forums, I'd suggest dpreview.com. My experience there, even as a noob-to-digital was quite positive.

I came late to digital as well. Tried a couple of digital cameras in the mid 90s, and they were laughably bad. Took me another few decades to try again. Fortunately all my Nikkor 'D' glass worked beautifully on their DSLRs, and, if anything, their ergonomics are better than on their film bodies - and they even preserved their "turn the knob the same way the top of the lens ring moves" for us film-dinosaurs.

The closest I've ever gotten to going pro is that I'm willing to be "someone at a wedding with a camera" but not the photographer. On one occasion (film days) the photog was a no-show. On a second, they'd lost shots due to a computer issue. The second occasion was no problem, I had high-enough-quality shots to mix in. The first gave me a sense of the pressure wedding photogs are under.

Speaking of Home Depot, I made the mistake of waking in there one day with an orange chamois shirt on. You can imagine how it went. :-)

And speaking of high-enough quality, have you looked at DxO PhotoLab? I can pick the camera I want my shots to look like when exported. I used it on that second occasion, made my shots look as though they were from the pro's Canon - even though I had a Nikon. Yet another reason to shoot raw.