You can make your featherboards any shape and stiffness you want. A wide short one for the fence, pretty stiff and barely pushing on the material from above (just enough to keep it from rising up, really) along with a dado depth support directly behind the stack sounds like it'd do it.
There is a lot of us investment in Chinese industrial manufacturing. Remember that China is a nominally communist country. I imagine that it would require a single signature to nationalize all of it.
Musical instruments have been made far longer than there have been power tools. Methods of cutting veneer with hand saws are documented from hundreds of years. Roubo on Marquetry covers it well enough for your purposes I think. DM me and I'll send you a .pdf.
Where in the world are you located? I have material in yellow cedar- a tone wood very similar to spruce- in pieces 6" wide x thick veneer to 3/8" thick, very tight vertical grain that I can supply you with at an attractive price.
It looks like you're in Europe so shipping may be prohibitive. I'm in the USA.
Not sure where you are and what is available to you but personally (for iron body planes) I prefer the better quality ones from the first half of the 20th century.
There are 3 ways to improve the cut on a smoother.
1 close the mouth
2 increase the cutting angle
3 adjust the chipbreaker close.
None of them are magic bullets, and for the most part you have to use one of them. Sometimes you can use mostly one and a little bit of another, but if you max out all 3 you'll have a badly choking mouth.
I just turned 60. To me you look like a very young woman. Make sure to enjoy your life. Tell your loved ones that you love them. Don't do stupid things that will harm you later, because even though it may look like later will never come, it will.
You can make your featherboards any shape and stiffness you want. A wide short one for the fence, pretty stiff and barely pushing on the material from above (just enough to keep it from rising up, really) along with a dado depth support directly behind the stack sounds like it'd do it.