Thanks for your post. Those are very useful tips and I appreciate you posting them.
It's always a good idea to give people options rather than just stating you have to do it such-and-such way. Nothing is compulsory in the Hackintosh world and use-cases will always vary, but security should be taken seriously.
I looked this up and there's a sort of logic to it, however perverse:
When USB 3 dual-lane was defined (20Gb) the USB implementors forum defined it as USB 3.2 and dragged USB 3 and 3.1 into the spec as gen1 and gen2, as of all three were always intended to be part of the same spec.
So today it's officially
USB 3 (5Gb) >
USB 3.2 gen1
USB 3.1 (10Gb) >
USB 3.2 gen2
USB 3.2 gen 2x2 (20Gbs)
USB 3.x does not necessarily include displayport but at 3.1 it usually does which loosely coincides with type-C connector release.
USB4 is backwards compatible with all previous, doubles link speed up to 40Gb for 2x2, and adds at least Thunderbolt 3 minimum, which includes at least a single 4K displayport 1.4 (optionally multiple lower res) plus advanced link reservation capability, and high power.
Thunderbolt 3 may optionally include two 4K displayport or one 8K, plus performance certification at whatever option level and a basic link reservation capability.
(For example, Apple M1 to date are USB4/TB3, with their single external display support.)
In general, USB features and performance levels are optional with no verification nor certification, and implementors have wide discretion on many features and config details, including pins, power, protocols and cable length. It's as good as the vendor makes it.
Thunderbolt 4 is all the above with all options mandated and a performance certification that includes up to 2 meter cables. TB4 is the top-end with no discretion and Intel verifies the implementation to allow the branding. It also includes more secure DMA (board IOMMU won't allow attached devices to access RAM without kernel assist al la "Thunderspy" and "Thunderclap" exploits) and more power/wake options.
Type-C is just a connector, so user must assess what capability lies behind it, with the practical minimum being USB 2.
It's gross, but there's a logic at work, which requires examining the history of the standards and noticing that more rigorous spec attends Thunderbolt and more vendor latitude attends USB, and that the two are slowly converging.
Hopefully I didn't mess up any of the above details — please do your own review when making purchase / config decisions.