With the insane licensing costs, I fail to see how this is still a viable choice for personal / small projects. Also, for larger projects, assuming you can afford the costs, the reality is that it's really hard to find decent Qt developers.
Use the LGPL licensing option?
Have fun dodging that minefield when distributing your app.
Is it really so complicated? Genuinely curious.
Whilst I really dislike the Qt licensing model, and it often stops me from using Qt, if the "personal / small projects" aren't commercial you can do whatever you want with Qt, and if they are commercial you can still use the LGPL license. In my understanding, you only have to pay for Qt if you have a commercial project and you don't want to use the LGPL license.