CAGED is the training wheels on your first bike. Nothing wrong with them, as long as you know when you're ready to take them off. Obviously once you're beyond a certain point they restrict more than they help you.

Good question to which I wish I had a solid answer. I enjoy almost all genres, when a listener. I won't be a singer, I don't see myself as much of a strummer, but I think I'd enjoy learning some old standards/pop/country in fingerstyle and flat picking, maybe some basic blues patterns because I enjoy those rhythms, learn a couple of better-known but less-complicated classical pieces. I don't understand jazz guitar enough to enjoy its complexity, so I'm not leaning in that direction for now. Nothing specific, at this point - I'm a kid in a candy store holding dad's Visa card, wanting it all while recognizing choices must be made without leaving out any good stuff as my clock ticks down. It's a good place to be.

The info here has been helpful to learn there is no "the right way," and that different forms of the educational process can be flexibly employed and enjoyed during the journey.

That was my concern - unwittingly employing a system (CAGED) that some said would ultimately hold me back. Any tips for recognizing when it's time for the training wheels to come off? Or does one just know it when it's time?

If you are into improvised ad lib playing then memorizing various scales and practicing enough to play quickly has increased utility and requires specialized time and attention. Otherwise the majority of your time is best spent is in learning to play actual tunes or songs.

I may have a chicken/egg or cart-before-horse issue, as I thought learning scales and the fretboard via same would facilitate learning to play actual songs.

I don't see improvised ad lib playing in my near future - I'm just trying to establish a good learning foundation at the outset to be able to move forward (learn/play songs of increasing complexity) as efficiently as possible. While I've seen plenty of "just play music, it will come to you" recommendations, I've read equally here and elsewhere that learning scales/intervals/chord-building is a necessary part of a firm foundation, time better spent on than parroting pieces without understanding how they were built. I don't know the answer now, so was erring on the side of greater fundamental education.

Though I've managed to learn multiple simple tunes, it seemed to me that process would have been easier/quicker had I a better grasp of the fretboard, hence, my focus on learning scales/forms.

This is my first time hearing of drop-2. Aren't these just maj7 chords? Is there a significance to the terminology that I should know?

I think knowing/learning all common chord "formulas" is fundamental, but to me, that's not the way I mapped the fretboard. Rather, it's the way I make use of my knowledge of the fretboard. The fretboard is mapped, in my head, with intervals that would be used to make chords and melodies of any type.

With unlimited time you can work on a lot of different things simultaneously. Personally when I started out I mainly focused on learning to play those things that
got me interested in playing guitar in the first place. For me that was instrumental tunes (mix of classical and fingerstyle pieces). I see and hear my son doing
that now (mainly things he hears on the internet - songs in computer games, movies, etc.). He gotten quite good at it (doing it mostly by ear) and enjoys it.