If I am being honest (and by no means want to come off disrespectful) but your list comes off as if you're looking for confirmation to move to the PNW. As someone who lived in both Portland and Seattle for years (currently in Seattle and looking to leave) you should add some criteria to your list that doesn't self select for "small cute fun towns near enough to Portland and Seattle without having to compete on price."

The people in Portland and Seattle are actually very different. For the most part people in Seattle are assholes (check out the urban dictionary for the Seattle freeze) people in Portland are a bit nicer but it's a hard town if your focus is your career (maybe this changes a bit with remote opportunities - but I am still in the camp that remote devs are always going to play second fiddle to the devs at HQ/in-office if thats an option).

If you are going to move somewhere with a remote job, Seattle would be a terrible place. And to be honest the surrounding area is not a much better bet. With how bad traffic is, 90 minutes isn't going to get you to small cute cheap towns, in fact most of the towns just outside Seattle are more expensive. It's not an undiscovered gem.

As someone without a remote job currently in Seattle, I wish I could just trade spots with you. I don't even care how bad your situation could be. Feel free to reply if you want any questions about Portland or Seattle. Happy to help if I can.