Thank you for your help!

The hanger looks parallel to the rear cassette as far as I can tell.. Rear shifts pretty well. The wheel also looks ok and spins pretty true. As far as the equal spacing between stays. It looks ok to me. The brakes pads are evenly spaced from the rim.

I might just accept that with my limited ability the chain will rub against the front derailleur cage when in the small chainwheel and smallest rear cog. I'll just trim it out if I want to use that combination of gears.

With all my trial and error, I've chewed up the chain pretty good. And that's probably what's causing the stuck chain issues that I started getting (probably exacerbating the cause of my chain rub too!). I think the burrs are catching on the large chainring rivets and getting stuck.

Regarding the 1x, it's pretty flat out here. I was even considering getting a single speed before deciding on the nano. I just wanted to use the bike to get around town, and I'm not a speed demon.

Through this journey, I'm building a nice set of bike tools. So far I have some cone wrenches and a baby torque wrench, and have a cassette lock ring tool, chainring nut tool, chain whip, and chain breaker on order.