Honestly I pretty much never change the difficulty away from Normal. I consider it the closest to the 'intended' experience, and it's very rare that I feel I would enjoy a game more if it was easier/harder. And Hard Mode is usually just Long Mode anyway.

I'm incredibly appreciative of the near ubiquity of the "change the difficulty mid-game" option. There was a time when that was not always the case! If a game is beating my ass or become boring from being too easy, it's nice that I can usually fix that (I now tend to avoid games where I can't)

Same- pretty much just stick to the middle difficulties.

I call it damage sponge mode. I can't remember what game it was but there was a mode that made everything one hit. Basically a glass cannon mode. That's a cool way to approach a hard mode

same here, I think playing the game the "intended" way is the best course of action, and allows for discussion on how other difficulties change things (for better or worse). Games with modular difficulty (SuperGiant Games is good at this) will always be the goat tho

This is valid! I do think the "intended" experience is the best in many cases, and people should enjoy games at whatever intensity fits them. My typical issue is that I really enjoy min-maxing in RPGs, so harder difficulties encourage me to explore and master the game's underlying systems.