Interesting. Cheers, all!
I know I was surprised the first time I realised a 700×32 would fit a 26” Soul rear end so I’m prepared to at least get a 26er and 27.5” front together to compare.
My overriding thought is that this is meant to be a temporary bike, so any money I spend on it I’d like to be able to carry over to the next one, hence 27.5 fork in the first place (apart from that as OP 26” pikes seem to sell for more) so if a 27.5 boost fork and 27.5 wheel aren’t going to affect things more than the 27.5 fork would in the first place I’ll probably do that. Because the old fork was 20mm I’m going to need to rebuild the front wheel at least if I do change the fork (non adjustable hub).
I know from my HT that non boost Pikes are a bit tight for large volume tyres on wider rims, so boost makes sense to me there too, for the increased clearance.