Beehive boggle

Did a beginners' beekeeping course last week - hurray! Fascinating stuff, and have been dreaming of bees every night since.
It is also mind-boggling stuff, especially as you need to get yourself a beehive (and other bits of equipment) before you can give a colony of bees a home. But beehive is not like beehive is not like beehive: there is a confusing number of versions and options, from the minor detail to the drastically redefined. Reading more and more and more about it all has been a major distraction and obsession for the last few days.

One thing I know: I would like to keep bees as kindly and naturally as possible. But then there is nothing natural about keeping bees in a wooden box (quote from the weekend course) - indeed. Surely though, there must be different degrees of intervention...?!

'Modern beekeeping' has changed little for over 150 years, so there is a lot of "it's always done that way" attitudes around. And those who dare to have differing opinions are often just as opinionated. Apparently, if you ask two beekeepers the same question you'll get three contradicting answers.
So how on earth is a beginner to draw their own conclusions and make their own informed decisions? Yes, you have to start somewhere and make it up while you going along, but then this brings us back to the question of the bee hive...