No, I just would have to think really hard to recall a front end specialist who didn’t get bogged down in fad chasing or wrote code better than a backend dev half-assing it.

I would say then that your project is simple enough that an underpaid full-stack dev is exactly what you want.

Possibly, but my experience is that front-end dev specialists tend to over-complicate things (usually so they can tinker with some new javascript flavored garbage).

My experience is that a lot of engineers do this regardless of where they work in the stack..

It can actually be important too for learning, moral, and innovation. Keeping it from negatively impacting the project is the trick.