random Q: is there a recommended or known tool that would create a "visually appealing" topography or other visual representation of the IaC being produced?

There's a graph view in Pulumi Cloud, but it shows the logical structure of the codebase (that is, based off of parent resources) rather than the DAG:

If you are looking for a visual tool that produces js code using pulumi automation api, <advt>, look at qmcloud.io

thanks!