I personally recommend an old laptop, but if someone chooses to use a VPS that's still better than Blockstreams centralized swap API.

Swaps don't have to be centralized... They can be atomic and run by anyone. I wouldn't recommend an old laptop for a lightning node. And a VPS is much worse than holding on liquid imo. Lightning nodes need high uptime and reliable hardware. Recommending an old laptop for anything other than a Bitcoin node is recommending something that could lead to a loss of funds when their laptop dies and they don't backup their channel states. Running a good lightning node is like a part time job man.