Maybe it's because I'm old and have worked at a number of different sized companies. But, Linus always struck me as very fake and inauthentic.
He gives off the vibe that he's one of the little guys, an independent journalist, just another employee - while completely ignoring the fact that he (and his wife) own the company and are YouTube millionaires and run a relatively large and influential company.
I can easily see Linus being an abusive, toxic person to work for.
I've worked for people like him before and their public and private personas are often complete opposites. In my opinion, this is Linus' mask slipping and we're getting to see the real him.
I have the same case for my SFF work pc. Its great, but the front dust grill can be a pain to clean and service.
For the M.2 slot. I believe the E key is for WiFi modules. However, you should be able to buy an adapter for M key. Something like thisSintech M.2 (NGFF) NVME SSD to M2 A/E Key WiFi Port with 20cm Cable https://amzn.eu/d/3JG3dhO ( YMMV - I've never used this setup for a boot drive before, please do your research before purchasing!)
In my opinion, I would still recommend purchasing a standard SATA ssd. If you find the nvme adapter works and you can have it as your boot drive, you could always use the SATA ssd as a cache store for the spinning rust