you can get the LLM to output max patches in JSON and copy paste directly into max. it was pretty decent at it when I tried and would probably be even better with relevant recent documentation in context.
some people only think about life as a way to make money. unfortunately coding was best-in-slot career for too long and these kinds of people hijacked the culture.
if a feature I want is in the paid product then I assume there's less chance of it being added to the free version. every feature has to go through a process to decide if it's paid or free.