Thank you all for the informative replies. I come from a music background, been playing in live bands most of my life, and over the past 4 years or so have been slowly getting more in to electronic music composition. I started on volcas and groove boxes, after a number of various pieces of gear I've currently settled on the Deluge as my centerpiece, I also have a Crave which I use paired often.
The more I've learned about electronic music, composition, and specifically flexibility of designing systems of rules from which music emerges has continued to lead me down the road into modular.
You've all convinced me that the Pico System is probably not the best first dive into eurorack for me. I understand that I'm not necessarily going to love every piece of gear I get along the way, and as I learn I'd like to have the flexibility to re-use or resell pieces of gear. @Lugia thanks for the suggestions, I have been looking at the Soundmachines Modulor114 and it looks pretty awesome. Something that could be re-sold as a stand-alone unit or mounted into a eurorack case (or kept separate but paired) is much more attractive, plus is sounds amazing!
@farkas I am going for mostly ambient pads and rythmic variance with analogue percussion. I am also looking to make my eventual system as generative as possible, which would allow me to run it as an accompaniment to the Deluge, as melodic ideas I generally scratch out on the Deluge.
I found a DFAM being sold second-hand by someone who actually lives in my neighborhood and plan to get that for now, pairing with my Crave and using my Deluge as an effects processor + extra CV and Gate as I experiment and learn more about modular. I figure this is a good starting point for now as the DFAM is pretty unique (resale value), is self housed + can be mounted in a eurorack, and is a good starting point for expansion if I decide to pick up a few modules (like Maths, for example) I could easily set up a little moog 2-3 tier stand. And at some point I may still go for that Modulor114 :)
Thanks for the advice everyone, I plan to take things slow and grow only as I learn and maybe hit some walls. Any tips on great ways to interface the Deluge with modular would be welcome. Cheers.