the one thing that stood out in your post was "spotify". I'd try Qobuz or Tidal before I changed anything else.
Streamer is much less important than DAC. The Qutest is a bountiful performer as it is great and not expensive. I didn't know you can use M-scaler with it but great that you can.
Yes, the Node is a relatively low level streamer but I've upgraded my streamer twice since the node, currently using a Grimm, and while you get improvement with improved streamer, I find the streamer makes much less differnce than the DAC.
Now the Grimm has onboard upscaling so I eliminated my M-scaler. I also moved from the Chord DAVE to a Lampizator at over twice the price. Recently I had my Lampizator out of service doing some mods on it and the DAVE filled in very, very well. The whole point of this is that you might get more bang for your buck upgrading your DAC...but the DAC you have is darn good.
I wouldn't worry about "overkill" or "too much smoothness". I think the skips are from spotify, not your equipment.
You're in a great position, not trying to fix a problem but trying to make a great system even better.
Jerry