You did well to skip the 2015-2020 era (butterfly keyboards, touchbar).
With that said anything M1 or newer is going to be a delightful upgrade for you. An enormous jump in performance, battery life, and thermal performance.
In 2021, I upgraded to the 2021 MBP from the 2012 first-gen retina. So I also skipped the bad models. The difference is night and day. You don't really notice the notch, especially if you view it as giving you extra space for the menu bar instead of eating into your screen.
With that said anything M1 or newer is going to be a delightful upgrade for you. An enormous jump in performance, battery life, and thermal performance.