No regrets. I had a 16” intel i9, then moved to a 13” MBP M1, and now back to a 16” M1 Max. I missed the larger screen and the max is just incredibly fast.
As far as battery life my M1 wasn’t that great tbh with MS teams and video calls. The Max isn’t that much better so I’m getting about 8 hours. Though I’m usually plugged in or near an outlet wherever I am.
Traveling will suck but that’s pretty infrequent given Covid.