[General Questions and Answers] IceWing_mk1:
First, thanks @SubwayChamp and @sd_shadow for trying to help.

To be clear, I'm documenting step by step here, a.) to make sure I can replicate what I'm doing b.) you guys can see what I'm doing (and possibly more importantly what I'm NOT doing) and c.) to make sure I'm not missing any steps.

rebooted the phone (Moto G Power) manually going into the bootloader, decided wanted to check settings first so then I

rebooted to go into the stock image (reset again last night via LMSA) in order to check for developer mode and usb debugging,

got the same message on startup that it's unlocked, so I know OEM Unlock is still open

went into settings-> about phone, tapped build # seven times to enable developer mode

went to settings-> system -> Developer Options, disabled autoupdates, enabled USB debug mode

Shutdown the phone , unplugged from USB cable and brought it back up in bootloader mode (via holding Down Volume and Power to start it up (it shows the android open for repairs, and in the text does say "Flashing_unlocked"

Plugged in USB cable, connecting phone to PC

Selected 'Start Recovery Mode', get the error screen reading 'No Command' with the red icon over the android open for repairs

@SubwayChamp - I tested this because you told me to make sure that Stock Recovery mode was there, which it seems like it is not... How do I \ do I need to fix that ?

Rebooted phone again, comes up with the restored version that LMSA put on it

Unplugged, power down, restart to bootloader, plugged into USB to connect to PC

In the directory containing the extracted contents of 'platform-tools_r31.0.2-windows.zip', downloaded from 'https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r31.0.2-windows.zip', I am opening a new CMD window via typing CMD in Windows File Explorer address bar 'C:\WorkingProject\platform-tools'

One question here... when you say make sure to use the most up to date SDK, with the most up to date binaries, I THINK the Android Platform Tools is the right one, but I've also downloaded and installed a full Android Studio, which is in a separate directory, and when I look at the root folder there, I don't see the same fastboot binary, which I believe is what I'm launching when I try the 'fastboot reboot fastboot' command. Which is the correct instance to be using?

Run the command 'fastboot devices' and get back the phone serial # and 'fastboot'

Run 'fastboot reboot fastboot' (which if I understand correctly reboots the phone, using the 'fastboot' binary in the 'platform-tools' directory on the PC)

Note: the binary in the local 'platform-tools' directory says 'fastboot', NOT fastbootd and is 1592kb

11.329 seconds later, the command has finished running and I see 'fastbootd' in big red letters on the phone screen

Copy the 4 img files (boot, product, system, vbmeta) from the directory where I'm storing the ROMs into the 'platform-tools' directory (I'm trying LineageOS 17.1 this time around)

Run command 'fastboot flash boot boot.img' in the previously opened cmd prompt.

Sending to boot_a, writing to boot_a.

Finished with a total time of 3.461sec.

Run command 'fastboot flash system system.img' in the previously opened cmd prompt.

Resizes system_a

sends 4 chunks of data and writes them

Finished with total time of 31.927s

Run command 'fastboot flash product product.img' in the previously opened cmd prompt.

Resizes product_a

sends 2 chunks of data and writes them

Finished with total time of 16.467s

Run command 'fastboot flash vbmeta vbmeta.img' in the previously opened cmd prompt.

sends 1 chunks of data and writes it

Finished with total time of 0.066s

Run command 'fastboot -w' in the previously opened cmd prompt to wipe the user data .

C:\WorkingProject\platform-tools>fastboot -w

Comes back with:

Erasing 'userdata' OKAY [ 0.513s]

Erase successful, but not automatically formatting.

File system type raw not supported.

Erasing 'metadata' OKAY [ 0.009s]

Erase successful, but not automatically formatting.

File system type raw not supported.

Finished. Total time: 0.539s

Just looked at the phone, still shows fastbootd in red at the top.

At the suggestion of @sd_shadow I'm adding the following fastboot oem fb_mode_clear

fastboot reboot

Run command 'fastboot oem fb_mode_clear' in the previously opened cmd prompt.

FAILED (remote: 'Command not supported in default implementation')

fastboot: error: Command failed

@sd_shadow - any idea why this occurred? Does this go back to I'm running from 'platform-tools' instead of the Android Studio?

No change on the phone screen

Run command 'fastboot reboot' in the previously opened cmd prompt.

phone reboots, warns me I'm unlocked, then right back into the bootloader screen again.

Restart Phone with Recovery Mode Option

Phone gives me the 'you're unlocked' warning, I push past it, get the no command red warning icon.

Unplug phone, reboot it, back to bootloader

So, I'm guessing that probably during the LMSA purge\reset the TWRP instance I had loaded into the recovery slot previously got wiped, and now I need to get the 'default' recovery tool back in there to actually initialize the images I have loaded and get this thing running.

What recovery image should I load? (and I believe it is done via going back into fastbootd on the phone, then running 'fastboot flash recovery >recovery image name<' from the command prompt)

Thanks in advance.

Ice