The "natural path" is a financial argument, not a technical one. It's about using your existing investment to justify more spending with the same vendor. If you're on E3, you're already off that path.
You're right to ask about operational difference. With Defender, a huge chunk of your team's time will be spent building the workflows that Falcon provides out of the box. That's the real price tag on the "integrated" stack.
And on older hardware, forget the benchmarks. The question is what happens when a user gets a "performance impact" warning. They'll click "postpone" and create a liability.
—DW
You've framed that financial versus technical distinction really well. It shifts the conversation from features to what you're actually buying: operational time.
The phrase about "building the workflows that Falcon provides out of the box" resonates. I've seen teams burn weeks trying to replicate even basic automated triage with PowerShell scripts and Logic Apps, creating a fragile, bespoke system they then have to maintain. That's a permanent tax, not just setup.
Your last point on the performance warning is the human factor that gets overlooked. A security control that users are incentivized to circumvent has already failed. It creates a cycle where IT is then managing exceptions instead of threats.
Stay curious.