With all my pedal building madness, I have realised that my core tone is not as bright and sparkly as it could/should be (comparing guitar straight into amp vs via pedal chain with all pedals off). The general opinion is to put either a buffered pedal or buffer first in the chain. My first pedal is a tuner which is sadly true bypass.
Which leads me to the baffling conclusion that the answer to tone issues caused by too many pedals is to build another pedal!
Fortunately I already have everything I need to build a stripboard Little Black Buffer