Whether your decisions were good or bad, or if you worked through school or not, are not the point.
The point is that the PSLF system does not make sense. I've stated this before in many threads, I have thoughts about how to fix it, and yes, I've written my various representatives about it (along with other things.) The simplest thing would be to spread out the forgiveness. Something like $10k at 10 years, $2k/yr for every year of service after that, etc. That would cut out lawyers and doctors that can put in 10 years, get $300k forgiven, then hop jobs to make $200k/yr. It would incentivize people to stay in public service positions.
You have two people working identical jobs, being paid by the government, getting paid different effective salaries because they took on different loan debts though whatever reason. Does that sound right to you?
It's not realistic that kids can do well in school, have a healthy lifestyle (read: buy decent food, live in a safe location, and utilize social outlets when necessary), all while working enough hours to pay for the education+lifestyle. I haven't seen it work for a single person yet. Everyone that I have witnessed obtain a degree with no debt did so because their parents set up a college fund for them long ago.
I've seen it. A big part of it depends on where you choose to go to school. Being completely debt free isn't the only way either. Borrowing something that's in line with your projected salary is much more common. $30k in debt with a $55k/yr starting salary? No problem. You never hear a peep out of those people. $80k in debt to start at $40k isn't really what you want to shoot for, so a borrower in that position without PSLF would be pretty screwed.
As it stands, yes, PAYE with PSLF will probably cost you the least amount of money. Depending on your wife's income and loan debt, you might want to file "married filing separately" to keep your PAYE monthly's based on only your income and not the joint income. There are tax breaks to filing jointly though, so you'll have to run the numbers each way each year and decide which way to file.