Everyone has different expectations of what they will be doing with their dink.
Some want to explore , some to water ski.
For is its going ashore or carrying out an anchor as needed.
Aluminum is robust to beach..
Davits on the stern have the most advantages for us.
Hard for the dink to get stolen , ready for use in 30 seconds ,oars get us to the usually loaded dink dock , and boats with locked oars seldom get borrowed.
Use a keyed lock, numbers are hard to set after dark.
https://edsonmarine.com/edson-oar-loc/
As we prefer to anchor our (23 years of liveaboard in a marina) the need for fuel requires a stop every 5-7 ICW days , so the dink provides storage for rubbish for the week.
Like many cruisers we stop at mid week,mid day ,for fuel, water, pump out , rubbish dump a trip to the grocery and perhaps the use of the washer dryer.
We can do it all in about 2 hours , so don't block the dock for the overnight marina to marina customers. $10.00 to the dock boy (sorry not PC) is far better than $50 a night for a week.
Our dink is a Grumman 9 ft sailing model so exploring a harbor is done in silence at 4-5K instead if 20-40k.