You're security model is overdoing it for anything that's not illegal.

1). Buy a cheap laptop in cash. One may wish to wear a disguise while doing so to avoid being on store cameras, and may also wish to take a bus to the location, or park his/her car far enough away away from the reach of store cameras, which can sometimes be located in parking lots.

Literally no reason to do this unless you need to destroy evidence of illegal activities and/or keep potential traces of illegal shit off your primary PC/laptop.

2). Immediately proceed to a public location to remove any bluetooth, webcam, wifi card, sound card, and hard-drive hardware from said laptop.(Any hardware I missed that should be removed?) My understanding is that the laptop should NEVER enter an individual's permanent place of residence until this step is complete.

Another unnecessary step unless you're paranoid that the police will raid you. For anyone trying to track you, except the police, a VPN/Tor should be enough unless you dox yourself.

3). One is now ready to actually use the laptop and go online, correct? If so, it can ONLY be used in public wifi locations while using either tails or whonix, correct?(I'm not sure which one is better). Additionally, is a VPN needed in addition to tails/whonix? At this point, does one need to install an anti-keylogger program(if such a thing exists and can honestly be relied upon)?

Once again, the public Wifi part is literally only necessary for someone paranoid about their house getting raided. This OPSEC method is getting outdated by the day anyways due to the amount of cameras in public capturing your every move.

Sure, an anti-keylogger is a good idea for any computer, especially one where you use personal info.

4). Did I miss anything? Anything at all? Or at this point is one free to use the net with confidence? Again, I am aware nothing is perfect.

You went overboard. Unless someone is trying to escape the Feds or INTERPOL, most of these steps are unnecessary nonsense that make it a longer process. For anyone doing legal things and wanting privacy, a VPN, Tor, and anti-virus/malware/keylogging software is sufficient.

The NSA likely has resources we are not aware of and may not be able to prepare for.

Not likely, they do. The feds have Tor 0-days lined up for emergencies/high value websites. They don't go wasting these on your run of the mill drug/CP sites because they have other ways to take the sites down that are more time consuming, but they lower the potential of their 0-day being patched. I don't expect them to use the 0-days unless there are sites dedicated to murdering people and/or for terrorist attacks.

I feel I must state that I am purposefully being pedantic and silly for the sake of this thought experiment.

I'll take it up a step. Melt the laptop, fake your death, and leave the country you're in after every use.