The wholesale store functionality has customer based price lists. I've also added products to cart with a discount amount as line item property, which is then picked up and discounted by line item script. Some concern there with people manipulating it but I think it's pretty theoretical and there are ways to combat that. Both those require Plus though.

They announced the new backend pricing API/web assembly script thing a couple weeks ago that seems like it will solve this issue for real.

Similarly to how the subscription stuff was pretty janky with apps until the selling plan stuff. That said, it got the job done even if it wasnt ideal, and now they have a good solution. I prefer that model to just rolling out a bunch of half baked features.

Responding more to the parent than you now, but in most cases if a business claims to critically need some specific feature, I wonder if they are not just married to the specific solution they have in mind and not the underlying problem. But if they really do need a specific thing, then certainly looking for the platform that offers it makes sense.