“the Ramchal says that there just needs to be a beard even if it is trim”
I’m with Ramchal. I keep mine trimmed.
I have seen photographs of yeshiva classes in Europe from the 1930s — all the bocherim were clean shaven. A Rosh Yeshiva who was in one of those photos told me that they used depilatories. Electric razors were first marketed in 1933 and many poskim hold that they are really like scissors, not razors, and therefore mutar.