Broken pages suck indeed. Other features are still alright. Only mobile use is suboptimal.

Nevertheless - big thanks to admin 

If you cut a few corners and have time to hunt for parts, it's probably doable.
Assuming you buy new:
My daily driver is long teng 268, and it's cheap, but i'm completely happy with it (13,000km and counting). There's a trap door on the down tube, so you could run mechanical shifting without having to do tight bends (or you route everything through the headset ofc). Frame's fast, guaranteed, and arguably my bike is a superbike (whatever that means), so it wont hold you back.
Wheels, if you're a uni student, i assume you're light, so you can buy elite wheels from AliX when there's a sale. If you dont overthink the specs, you can get a capable wheelset for cheap.
Groupset. If you get semi hydraulic disc brakes, you can get a group for really, really cheap. Full hydraulic would still be cheap. I think everyone moved to full hydraulic, but my 1st gravel bike is semi hydro, and it does work.
A stem costs 10 eur, capable alu handlebars in 36cm wide cost 20.
Could be worth looking for 2nd hand groupset parts. Depending on where you live, could also make sense to buy wheels second hand.
Ignore 12s stuff, you can save money by doing 11s. Idk how 10s compares, as this really feels dated. We still run 11s.

I'm not sure to understand what you mean.
I replaced an Ultegra crankset with a GRX 600, I didn't add any spacer and I don't see any play.
Beside, road cranks and "Gravel" ones are made for the same BB size.

Interesting, I guess the chain line difference is just cassette spacing then?

 Just unpacking my recently received CS-GR01, wondering what if anything I should make of the faintly visible ridging/wrinkling inside the head tube in attached pic.

I can tolerate a few things as it‘s mostly for leisure training activitys and maybe 1-2 races a year.An Alloy frame and wheels would be fine as long as I‘m able to keep the build sub 10kg but I can‘t go with mechanical discs or rim brakes as I just can‘t stand them anymore.

Getting a used bike is also out of the question as I don‘t want to face issues caused by previous owners bad maintenance or general fatigued material due to age and use, else I would have done that.

at that budget you'll have to make significant sacrifice on major components to fit under the budget just food for thoughts.

I would not ride the cheapest carbon frame available just to ride something new and under my budget same goes for wheels/handlebars/etc.