As usually, lots of valuable advices.
Excuse me my late answer - I was travelling for business with restricted time to access my personal stuff.
First of all, my block and Jack planes are not from LV, but LN (Lee Nielsen). No idea if I typed wrongly or some "automatic spelling corrector" acted on that.
Yes, in Brazil we have Stanley planes commonly sold t several places but their quality are terrible. Actually I am in my second no. 4 as the first one I trashed three decades ago. My current no. 4 took me more than a couple of hours just to flat the base and set up the chip breaker... and it is yet difficult to get good results. Their controls are extremely flimsy and not precise. It is very difficult to use by a beginner... think on it like an old 200k mile Chevy with low maintenance: for a veteran driver it can work yet but for a novice, no way to work with it. I am a novice for hand planes. Yes, I also purchased a Stanley block plane... it was cheap at both meaning of the work. Imagine it doesn't have a cast iron base, just a metal sheet bended conveniently! Bottom line is local sold Stanley planes are bellow to indecent. I do not consider them.
I was to give up of any hand planes when I had a chance to handle a Lee Nielsen plane and from that moment I start to consider perhaps there are some salvation also for me!
Returning to my original question, I am afraid of traditional (including chip breaker) Stanley style planes and that is the main reason I really consider a traditional Japanese smooth plane instead the obvious step towards a Stanley no. 4 or no. 4 1/2. You guys opened my yes to forget my prejudice and re-consider the traditional approach also for smoothing. When I asked you I was very prone to the Japanese solution (yes, I know, it also have a chip breaker) and now I returned to square zero!
Thanks all for the valuable feedback!
All the best,