So if I had to guess morethanevil, this is the line that ended up fixing it! Really appreciate it, because everything else seemed to fall into place after this:
setsebool -P samba_export_all_ro=1 samba_export_all_rw=1
I really appreciate all of your help Certainly_No_Brit! I had it set up in such a ridiculous way, but your assistance really helped me grasp why each guide was so wildly different (creation vs. adding a remote SMB on linux). After it worked, I could look up the network drive in Dolphin/Windows File Explorer in a very normal manner and can access all of the files :)!
Maybe your issue was with your firewall or permission in some regard unknowing8343? I still really prefer Windows' method (gag), but this was certainly very doable w/ the SELinux tweaks in the link above.
Appreciate it! Yeah everything that sounds like it would be easy, always has a fun extra hurdle on Fedora it seems haha.
Still loving it :)