For sure! I don't really follow the forums because 9/10 times the topics won't be related to the things that I map.

But I'm mostly aligned with you on the tagging method for these types of paths. If it's an informal path that I'm not super familiar with, I'll usually use highway=path, informal=yes, surface=ground. In my view the surface tag is one of the most important tags, as it seems to be one of the most common that external applications (e.g. Gaia GPS, Strava) make heavy use of from OSM data.

Side note, I see people using the incorrect surface=dirt tag in the Wasatch and it bugs me more than it should haha. Pretty much none of our paths save for a few flowy mountain bike trails are actually manicured dirt like the tag is designed for; it's almost always just whatever the natural ground happens to be in the area. I've been over time correcting these surface=dirt tags to surface=ground, but there's a ton of them and I haven't gotten to all of them yet.