Everyone's situation and value of dollars, time, convenience, gear sensitivity is different. Our choice has changed over the years and attitude toward renting versus owing had changed too.

Decades ago when we started our kids 4, 7 and 9 we went all in buying and waterfalled the equipment. Trying to size and rent for 5 was way too much and we got lots of value in waterfalling the equipment

Now that they are 19, 23, and 25 and us in our late 50's we generally rent medium gear ( we do blues to easy black ), the kids all ( young adults ) pretty much black / blues. We bounce between flying into Park City / Deer and driving to Whistler, and only ski one week a year so and even driving we pretty much suck our first day relaxing and renting at a convenient place. The fit for boots can be variable and sometimes we end up swapping out the boots and/or skis depending on conditions. When you own you got the pressure to always use what you got and grin and bear it sometimes.

if and when I every getting to skiing more than 5 times a year I'll re-consider the value of getting custom high end. Everytime I see that custom boot place at Whistler I say next year, LOL