Need a new printer. Am I crazy to want a wired ethernet connection?

Wired is nice, but printers have become such POSs I buy the cheapest one that will do what I need it to do so I can throw it away and buy a new one if I need to. Cheap printers ain't usually gonna have a wired connection. That being said, the Brother INKvestment printer I bought has run like a champ for 2 years now. It get sporadic use so the Epson it replaced was always getting clogged printheads. I don't know if I've even replaced the damn ink in it yet, so it doesn't use a lot of that either. The printing is slow as shite tho, but the tradeoff is worth it IMO.

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a wireless Dell B&W laser printer

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Those were just rebranded (from Lexmark, I think). We bought a bunch of the 23xx series MFPs over a decade ago. We still have a few running. Most of them were freaking tanks (but nothing to compare to some of the older HPs).

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Am I crazy to want a wired ethernet connection?

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No. Wireless is great but it's never going to be as reliable as a wired connection. We make sure our company printers/copiers/mfps are wired so we can make sure we can monitor them (and it makes people more reluctant to move them around the offices on their own).

Brother multifunction with network port is what I have.

Idk how inkjet tech is nowadays, but my god was it terrible like 5 years ago

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Brother INKvestment printer I bought has run like a champ for 2 years now.

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Same. And I'm just now having to buy ink.

Unnecessary. The printer, in comparison to your phone or tablet, gets so little data sent to it in the course of the average day, it's worthless. I had my Brother MFC3770 wired, but the different laptops, desktops, phones etc would see both the wired and the wireless interfaces as available print destinations. Too much of a PITA. Disconnected ethernet. No problems.

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It's been quite a number of years now

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I think that's the key to your anecdote, though. I had a Brother from 2006-ish that I constantly had to disconnect/reconnect/refind on PCs (MFC7840). However, the one I bought in 2020 has had this issue a single time in two years.

I've had laser printers in my house for ~20 years, including ones with LPT ports, and I made a mistake in underestimating how far the software and firmware has come. Scan straight to the cloud from the printer without the PC being on? Print a school worksheet from wife's phone without me having to pull up the email and print it? Also awesome.

Wifi connectivity has gotten leagues better, but it's also important to fix the actual problem. If your wifi has issues, fix the wifi. It's not the problem of the printer. Also, the powersaving settings have gotten better in the last decade, where "sleep" doesn't seem to mean, "I died and you need to reconnect me the hard way."

Buy a wireless one, keep the box, use it for two weeks, and return it or put it on eBay if it doesn't meet your needs.