You’re completely right, I forgot about that method. I’ve used it in the past, it works great and is far more controllable and safe.

True, I’ve seen many molten rolls of filament because of overly warm ovens. Make sure it doesn’t go over 60C and you’re good. Mine is good, has a little overshoot when heating up, but if you let it warm up first and then put the filament, it generally stays very close to 60C. I havent had problems. Other ovens - be careful. Food dehydrator is better, but if you don’t have it, you may as well buy an actual filament dryer. Desicant beads didn’t work for me. They do the trick of maintaining the dryness, but if you have ANY built up moisture in your filament, the beads won’t do much.

A little mini torch, similar to a regular gas lighter also can work wonderfully.

As others have mentioned:

• Dry your filament. Stick it in the oven for 2+ hours on minimal settings. If you have a fan in the oven, even better. edit: use the printer bed, see comments below
• Tune your printer. Do a temperature tower with your dried filament. Lower temperatures might improve quality at the expense of lower layer adhesion. Do a flow calibration routine. Overextrusion can also have effects like this.
• Slow down the printing. Increase minimal layer time, which might have an effect. If it’s original E3, it has relatively poor part cooling, which can be compensated by slowing things down.

Nothing wrong with Ender 3, if you thinker enough, you can get results as good as any other printer. But it may require tinkering. The model that you’re printing is difficult with FDM printers of any kind. It has thin, delicate parts with steep overhangs. It can look better, but it’s gonna be hard to achieve. Resin printers are definitely a better choice for this, but you use what you have.