They hold “system binaries” meant for root user. It’s not a hard distinction but many if not most Linux fundamentals have their roots in very early computing, mainframes, Bell and Xerox, and this good idea has been carried into the here&now. Not sure about the provenance of this one, but it makes sense. isn’t /mnt /media different between distros? These aren’t hard and fast rules - some distros choose to keep files elsewhere from the “standard”.

/bin and /usr/bin, one is typically a symbolic link to another - they used to be stored on disks of different size, cost, and speed.

https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch03s16.html

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/5915/difference-between-bin-and-usr-bin

Nothing was ever wrong with calling them “virtual assistants” - at least with them you’re conditioned to have a low bar of expectations. So if it performs past expectations, you’ll be excited, lol.

That’s what threw me off at first, the bottom is very nice. I think some grime and darkness in places, maybe even corrosion would give it some life. It looks too “new” you know? Almost like a 3d model. I think if you could make the raised portions more defined (with shadows via airbrushing, doesn’t need to be a physical change) it would make the helmet more defined. If you haven’t seen that one Mythbuster detail models, I highly recommend giving Adam Savage’s YouTube channel a watch!