The one area that I’m not seeing mentioned is outside. Think about landscape lighting (front and back), sprinkler control, wiring for a driveway sensor, mailbox sensor, gate sensor, etc.

You may also want to think about wiring for the holidays, especially if you ever plan to do a light show and want addressable LEDs, permanent tracks along the eaves, projector(s), power/wiring for a mega tree and other props, etc.

Our house is exclusively smart dimmers and a few smart switches, no bulbs.

You can do bulbs if you must have colors or lamps but they have the drawbacks that they then require app, voice or remotes and if turned off at the switch they lose their smarts. To workaround that so family members and guests (and yourself) can always interact with them manually or programmatically, you can get smart switches that have a smart bulb mode.

I would always opt for switches/dimmers over bulbs unless you have a specific use case requiring bulbs.

I would avoid any switches/dimmers that require cloud accounts and instead always try for local control. To that end, consider Z-Wave or ZigBee (or Matter), where you can have local control.

As for specific questions about Home Assistant, if ask in their subreddit.

Have you checked that both outlets are switched? Very often they are wired where only half is switched and the other is always powered. If that’s the case, there’s nothing you need to do except switch to the other outlet.

If both halves are switched and there is no constant hot in the box, then there isn’t much you can do. If the power is turned off at the switched, a smart plug isn’t going to be able to function either.

I suggest having an electrician check it for a constant hot and wire that up instead of the switched hot.