I'm especially interested in your experience 'cuz I am actually running a 2012 i7, 2.6 GHz with 16GB RAM (1600 MHz DDR3). Many of them are actually brand new Macs, never used, returned in unopened boxes, so buying refurbished is always a smart idea if you can find one that meets your spec requirements. I have had better luck with refurbished Macs than I've ever had with new ones, and they come with the same 1-year warranty. If not, note that the Apple Store's refurbished area is now offering some M1 Macs it's worth looking at those to see if any of them meet your specs.

If you can scrape by until then it would probably be worth the wait. There's supposed to be a redesigned Mini (smaller but more powerful) and a number of other models. If you're not in immediate dire straits I'd say it's worth waiting until later in the year to see the new more powerful models that Apple will be announcing. Given that my needs are so modest, I may just get the M1 Macbook Air, which by all accounts would not only blow away my existing Intel mini but might even blow away my Mac Pro (although I need the Mac Pro for my DaVinci Resolve video work the Air won't be able to handle that). I have a 2013 Mac Pro with 32 gigs of RAM for my 'real' work, but my day-to-day machine is a 2014 i5 Mini with 8 gigs of RAM and it is barely usable for even my modest audio needs (never more than 5-6 tracks, only 1-2 plugins per track, a few buses).

Davinci resolve 17 keeps crashing