Static batch, or mesh combine?

Experienced users reach for the profiler, perhaps the frame debugger.

Again, opinions and theory don’t matter.

At a minimum, measure first, don’t guess.

What matters is how your specific software runs on your specific hardware.

And since your original post mentioned object pools, just beware:

The costs and issues associated with object pooling / pools:

In very rare extremely-high-count object circumstances I have seen small benefits from pooling.

In MOST circumstances, object pooling is a source of complexity, bugs and edge cases while not giving any measurable benefit.