Excellent post for the newbies! It would be good if this was pinned to the top.

A lot of the things you're not finding so easy will be ironed out with time. The color mismatch is something you can fix if you learn how to colour the hair yourself. I color my own hair every 3 weeks and the piece hair about every 5 weeks. This keeps both exactly the same colour so there's never a worry about colour being off, even in all sorts of light.

The feeling of the piece on your head when you're in bed goes away too. And almost all of time, you won't be aware of the piece being on your head at all.

I still wear hats a lot too because I don't like the wind messing up my hair. But I wore hats for that reason when I had a full head of hair in my teens. If it's really windy outside I'll be wearing a hat regardless of if I'm wearing or not. I've never had one of those low, narrow foreheads that some guys have and they can let the wind blow the crap out of it and still look great.