You shouldn't need to be making all of those changes in your system. Early on in the Pipewire lifespan, there was no way to set the settings without manually touching the config files. But, nowadays, you have no need to touch them at all.
To get back to the need of using conf files: I made a little list of what I've used them for until now. Maybe you could use env vars or other means for some, but for most settings the conf files were definitely necessary:
Disable audio sink suspend on idle : wireplumber.conf.d
(may possibly prevent pops and clicks at resume)
Create virtual audio sink and set as default sink : pipewire-pulse.conf.d
(to prevent all autoconnections to the system output, while still allowing autoconnections being made for consumer audio)
Set a minimum quantum of 512 for consumer (aka pulseaudio) apps (in particular, steam games) : pipewire-pulse.conf.d
(steam proton games induce a 128 quantum which is too low)
Restrict realtime prio for consumer apps : pipewire-pulse.conf.d
(just because)
Set default clock rate to 44100 : pipewire.conf.d
(the default meant for consumer audio. I'll force a 48000 rate for certain jack apps)
Force 48000 clock rate, and node latency 128/48000, for specific, but not all, jack apps : jack.conf.d
(together with the default above, when closing those jack apps, the clock rate returns to the default 44100. Jack_mixer is excluded since it always runs, and must therefore not force anything)
Prevent jack apps from making connections at will : jack.conf.d
(I use a qpw patchbay to make the necessary connections)
Prevent alsa apps from autoconnecting to the default sink : client-rt.conf.d
(same as above)
Enable irq scheduling without enabling a "pro audio" profile : main.lua.d
(if the latter leads to unsolvable volume issues on re-logins, but you still want IRQ based scheduling, for whatever reason)
Interesting list! I notice that you’ve found a way to enable IRQ based scheduling without setting the ProAudio profile! That’s cool! While I still think the commandline tools remove most of the need for config file editing, these things you discovered look quite handy! 
Statistics: Posted by Audiojunkie — Mon Nov 04, 2024 1:20 am