Opinions and recommendation welcome!

That’s wrong.
What you need is 2D gap file and that one would look similar to what you posted without curly braces part.
You also need to set up your LEDs in a 2D configuration.

[1,...1,
1,...1,
...
0,...0,
1,...,1,
...]

Were did you find addressable pixie (fairy) LEDs"

They are on AliExpress. Here’s the link that I bought from, but there’s a couple/few vendors that have them, I think. Fairy Pixels

Warning: The wire labels shown on that link are incorrect. If you buy from them and ask - they’ll send a length of pixels with the proper labels.

It’s: Power/Data/Ground/Return. Power has the faint-to-see red spots.

Most places are now calling them seed/pebble lights/pixels. Lot’s of places have them now.
Wally’s, Your Pixel Store, Mattos Designs, Pixel-Now… The only place I have seen ones with a 4th wire for return data is Ali Express.