Based on my understanding, you can use older architectures (Intel ones) and export ARM compatible VSTs with Cabbage. Until recently I used Cabbage on an Intel 2018 MBP and my friends on ARMs architectures had no issues. (@rorywalsh please correct if I’m wrong!)
The codesigning process sucks, and is expensive. I automated it, but it’s a pain…
If you’re a student can you check if your university has a partnership with Apple and if you can get it for free?
If you want to distribute presets (and create the presets folder in the Music/ directory for example) I think it’s more convenient for the user to build an installer. FYI you can automate the process with packagebuild and once it’s done it’s just a command line to run on your end to generate the pkg.
Maybe that’s a crazy idea, but do you think the codesigning could be bypassed by adding this ad-hoc signing in the installer? It’s definitely hacky but maybe it would work 