Ryan Holiday's system puts some of the work farther from the note taking origin compared with Nicholas Luhmann's system which places more of it up front.

How, if at all, do the payoffs from doing each of these vary for the end user of the system?

"So long as it happens." And here lies the rub: when will you put in the work to make the note useful and actionable? Will it be now or later?

Some notes are certainly more mission critical than others. Some work towards one's life's work while others are tidbits which may be useful at a later time. Distinguishing along this spectrum isn't always easy, particular in build a bottom up view of one's research.

There is a difference between the sorts of links one might make when placing an idea into an (analog) zettelkasten. A folgezettel link is more valuable than a simple tag/category link because it places an idea into a more specific neighborhood than any handful of tags. This is one of the benefits of a Luhmann-artig ZK system over a more traditional commonplace one, particularly when the work is done up front instead of being punted to a later time.

For those with a 1A2B3Z linking system (versus a pure decimal system), it may be more difficult to insert a card before other cards rather than after them because of the potential gymnastics of numbering and the natural tendency to put things into a continuing linear order.

See also: - https://hypothes.is/a/ToqCPq1bEe2Q0b88j4whwQ - https://hyp.is/WtB2AqmlEe2wvCsB5ZyL5A/docdrop.org/download_annotation_doc/Introduction-to-Luhmanns-Zette---Ludecke-Daniel-h4nh8.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iRzF_ZAdUI

Scott Sheper demonstrates one of the lowest forms of zettelkasten: simply indexing an idea from a book into one's index. This includes skipping the step of excerpting the idea into it's own card.

He describes it as zettelkasten knowledge building for busy people. It's definitely a hard turn from his all-in Luhmann-esque method.

In the end it comes down to where one puts in the work. Saving the work of having done some reading for a small idea one may tangentially reference later is most of the distance, but he's still going to have to do more work later to use the idea.

Cellini, N., Di Giorgio, E., Mioni, G., & Di Riso, D. (2020). Sleep quality, timing, and psychological difficulties in Italian school-age children and their mothers during COVID-19 lockdown [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/95ujm