Thanks for the very thorough response! The preset brushes things sounds like an OK work-around. What do you mean by X-Mouse?
I hope they eventually add a preference to disable partial-pixel amounts in brush size. It doesn't make any sense for making purely raster art, and it's odd that so many things seem to snap to the whole amounts except brackets (which I would say is the fastest way to change brush size on a keyboard). It might seem a little nit-picky, but after using my workflow for 15 years, it's a big slow down to switch. If you're listening, Affinity, I would appreciate more customization options for things like this in the future. You would have a new convert with some more preferences on the tools.