Re: Irish Bouzouki as first stringed instrument?
In my part of the (German) Irish music world there are plenty of guitarists but very few bouzouki players when it comes to accompaniment. From a chordal point of view, the guitar gives a fine sound, but I think it's harder work to get that open, modal (however you want to describe it) sound which is natural to the bouzouki. This is a personal opinion, as I have a mild arthritis issue, made worse by stretchy guitar chords, and since playing Irish bouzouki it has not been a problem for me. I play GDAE, which suits me best and sounds fine, but it seems GDAD is more often used. Of course, playing melody on bouzouki without a capo is not ideal as the spacing is so wide that your hand has to move excessively, so with your OM you'd be better off in that respect. I go from one extreme to the other, playing melody on mandolin and accompaniment on bouzouki, but since the tuning is the same (for me) I can easily at least pick out tunes on the bouzouki.
To get back to your question, I don't see much point in focusing on guitar when it's not your goal if your time is limited. It IS certainly useful to observe guitarists in a session to see what chord's they are playing, especially if your learning how to accompany tunes, but for me that was just a by product of already being a guitarist... I think it would take a long time to learn that skill from scratch.
Finally, another great reason to play bouzouki is because it's visually as well as tonally a beautiful instrument, and looks good in the mix, and gets more interest from observers than guitars do.
Unless you get a guitar body bouzouki, but maybe I'd better not go there...
Wishing you joy in whatever you decide :-)
"What's that funny guitar thing..?"
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