Effectdigital,
Critical Path optimization is just one part of a bigger amp pie including:
- Allow only asynchronous scripts
- Size all resources statically
- Don't let extension mechanisms block rendering
- Keep all third-party JavaScript out of the critical path
- All CSS must be inline and size-bound
- Font triggering must be efficient
- Minimize style recalculations
- Only run GPU-accelerated animations
- Prioritize resource loading
- And More
So amp process covers a lot, and agreed top devs is ideal, but in WordPress world there are plugins that successfully cover 90% of what a solid dev would do in a custom project, and for many cases a plugin is more then enough so looking for more input, of any that had success. Again thank you for the current response this is helpful.