Still love my iMac (specs below). I ordered mine BTO and specced it out as much as I could afford so that I could use it for gaming (bootcamped into Windows) as well... so I'm not sure if that falls within your definition of a "base" iMac. Of course, I obviously don't use it for gaming, anymore; I have a separate Windows based gaming laptop for that, these days -- but for anything requiring that I can do under macOS, the iMac still works quite well. Runs Windows 11 decently, too, even though it's not technically supported.
I also intentionally specced mine with a straight SSD instead of going fusion; at no point have I ever trusted the concept of a fusion drive.