[kamlaserbeam]

I don't have much to contribute to your post but I feel a lot of these struggles in my life. With opinions relating to technology I think most of it comes to me not having an industry experience (still in university). With topics such as politics or history sometimes I feel I can't have an opinion unless I've read a book or done very extensive research on a topic or field. I've recently tried to use your second point of lowering the bar of what constitutes a good strong opinion, but like you said it depends a lot on the situation and audience.