Should I have upgraded my late 2011 Macbook pro from HDD to SSD before or after OCLP?

I already installed Ventura 13.6.4 on my MBP but it took a lot of troubleshooting and time. I think I may have made the mistake of installing it before upgrading the hard drive.

Is it worth the time and effort to upgrade it and re-install Ventura? or a newer OS?

Should I prioritize upgrading different hardware? She has 8GB of ram.

I'm not really sure where to go from here. I just want it to run a bit faster.