Giving a newcomer advice about sticking with non-TFI units is a bit of missing the forest for the trees. One is unlikely to be able to hold on to that condition for 20 years. The advice is get in wherever you can, then pivot. That's life advice for the world of what things are (where I live), not the world of what things should be.

Research the recent proliferation for involuntary non-flying individual mobilization augmentee billets, and where does your target unit sit on that front. Avoiding those is probably a more significant QOL differentiator than just avoiding TFI units outright as a generality. Personally I'd take a unit where all I had to do was barter for 90 day chunks doing my assigned flying duty on a deployed basis, TFI or no TFI, rather than get my scrotum pinched by the zipper of individual IA mob. This is especially so if you want to give yourself a fighting chance of seeing a 20-year letter as opposed to what people are doing these days, getting burnt out and throwing their arms up, leaving entire retirements on the table. 10 years ago I would have said that was ludicrous and impossible, yet here we are, peers of mine no less.

Yes, it stands to reason and it is the case that TFI units are riddled with Active Duty mentality as a captive audience. But also understand there are flying communities where there are no stand alone ARC units anymore.

To be frank, I would be prepared to do a lot of unit hopping in the future. The ARC world is in a lot of turmoil right now. It's a good membership to have to stiff arm the juniority of the airline industry (much to the chagrin of your civilian competition), but it's not without great opportunity costs as well. All that said, I probably would have never served in a military capacity if not for the ARC. The Active Duty "devil's trade" never appealed to me, at ANY price.