Help me overcome my fear of wood smokers

You don't need one unless you're cooking large quantities. I have a 26 inch Weber Kettle, and have smoked all sorts of things on it. Two boston butts at once, up to 3 racks of ribs, chicken, turkey, etc. I use the snake method for coals and put chunks of wood on top. Usually a 2x2 ring of coals, about 2/3 of the way around the perimeter at the bottom, and just lay fat chunks all the way around on top of that. You will learn more and more with experience, but I rarely check it once I get it started. Maybe every 90 minutes, but you can quickly walk over and look at the thermometer, or you can get one that will clip to the cooking grate or probes to the meat. Like you, I mostly just grill burgers, dogs, chicken, and simple stuff, but for versatility a kettle is great.

ETA: I used to have a big offset smoker and the Weber kettle can do anything that could do, just not as much meat at once. I liked that I could start a chimney of coals on the gas side burner, and dump into the firebox with new wood but after tinkering with the snake method there’s no sense in fooling with all that just to cook for my family. If I was cooking for a party maybe.

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wood smoker, where I go with different types of wood,

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All smoke comes from wood. The easiest smokers to use that are in your price range will be ones that run off charcoal where you add different wood chunks to it. You can buy all different types of wood chunks for smoking at Academy, Walmart, Home Depot, or the grocery store.

Look at Webber Smokey Mountain, Pit Barrel Cooker, Oklahoma Joe Bronco, etc..

Not sure which electric ones you've looked at but i recently started using a MasterBuilt Smoke Hollow Electrcic smoker and have been very happy with it.

Its a vertical with a glass door, and i did 4 Boston butts at one time a few weeks ago. Plenty large enough for what you'll probably use it for. I like the convenience of it, its pretty much set and forget - other than the first few hours having to add chips to the tray.

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Is it really an all-day investment of time? Do you constantly have to watch it?

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Yes and yes. It’s a “spend all day outside drinking and checking the fire” thing.

Weber Smokey Mountain. Charcoal smoker that with a little practice you can get dialed in pretty quick. You can use any wood you want or multiple woods. I sit with a cold beer and watch the thermometer from my living room or if the weather is nice from the porch.

Yes, you need to check it every 30-60 Minutes. You don’t want the fire to get too hot and if it drops too low, it adds to the cooking time. Is it hard? No, it just requires you to tend to it. I have a wood smoker and an electric smoker. I use the wood smoker as a hobby, when I want to spend my day having something to do.

I’ve had this for a couple of months and have been very happy. Holds target temps well.

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OP this is long read but I would buy a pellet grill to fulfill your needs because they are so simple to operate. They are easy as a gas grill. If you want a quality pellet grill on a budget the ZGrill 7002E is awesome. They manufactured Traeger grills for decades before they went out on their own in 2017. Traeger has many grills for all budgets. I’ve known dozens of people that owned Traegers over the years from their budget grills to their more expensive higher end type offerings and I can tell you this you pay extra for that Traeger name. They all seem to like their Traegers. But the Z Grill 7002E is widely considered one of the best budget pellet grills available that does not sacrifice on quality. I helped a friend put his together and it was sturdy and well built. He purchased his direct from Z Grills and it came with a rain cover, thermal insulated blanket cover to keep the temperature variance down on cold windy days, and 75 pounds of pellets for $590. $434 with just the rain cover. It had a stainless steel lid which was nice nor did he have to pay shipping or taxes. Cooking dimensions are 19.2 x 26 inches. Smoking & warming rack dimensions are 6.9 x 27.5 inches. Total rack surface area is 700 square inches and it has a 20 pound hopper. My buddy smoked a 17 pound brisket in it with room to spare. Is it my dad’s Rec Tec 700 or my brother’s Camp Chef with the cool sear box? No. But for someone on a budget I don’t see how there is a finer pellet smoker grill. I’m telling you it was well built, heavy duty, without a few of the bells and whistles that honestly you can do without. I’m going to buy one for the camp. My research showed a few people in 2018 had complaints about temperature control variance with their 700 model. However, they addressed the heat variance issues in the 7002 models and fixed that occasional temperature variance. The way I see it Z Grill has 30 years of experience building pellet grills, are a new name to the public, thus they are buying some business to get their name out there. In my opinion that Z Grill should sell for more money. It also comes with a 3 year warranty. I bet I read 25 different websites on 2020 pellet grill reviews and 90% of the time Z Grill wins the Best Budget pellet grill category because you get a lot of bang for your buck.

With your post and not providing a price range, I would recommend an electric smoker. It does good enough for what you're looking for and is easy. It's basically an oven with wood chips.
Would I buy one? Nope, I prefer hardwood smoking.

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What is not appealing is the thought of spending my entire day checking the fire every 30 minutes to see if I need to add wood, or take other steps to control the temp.

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Then your best bet is to throw wood onto a kamado. A kamado type grill will allow you to forget about it for quite awhile, and still add different types of wood.