The differences between all those examples you gave can be minor or massive depending on the user and what software they are using. Some types of work will be very slow on 4GB of memory vs. 8GB, while others can get by just fine with 4. Same with storage. If you save a lot of large files, 500GB will become a real problem before too long. Other people will never need more than 150GB no matter how many years go by.
For your usage, I would suspect that the right laptop for you would come with a 250 GB SSD. No more, no less, such as this ASUS Zenbook which sells on the Microsoft Store for about $600 on sale. A Sky Lake version of this laptop would be something I could recommend without hesitation to a user like yourself. It would do...