Electrical Question: Wiring solution for changing from a can light to regular box.

Factual Questions
1

I have a house built in the 70’s that has a mixture of lights and receptacles on the same circuits. I’m trying to change out two can lights for regular fixtures and I want the two lights to be on the same switch.
Currently in the can light box I have identified the source line (14-2), the switch leg (14-2), the line that continues on the circuit (14-2), and the line to the 2nd light (14-2). I would also need to wire in the actual light fixture so that will needed to be added eventually.
AFAICS It looks like they crimped all of the ground wires together and wired all 5 of the neutral (white) wires together under one nut. They then wired 3 of the black (hot) wires except the switch leg, the light fixture and the black that continues to the second fixture.
Now I’m going to be replacing the switch leg with 14-3 and using the red wire because AFAIK that is the current code but I don’t really want that to confuse anything because the neutral just gets capped off.
The big issue is how would an electrician make this all work for the average homeowner? Nobody wants to have to wire into a huge mess just to change a fixture. Would an electrician bury the mess in a deep box and run short jumpers for the fixture? On the neutral side that would be 5 #14 wires in one bundle, which seems a bit unusual but it makes sense and it would allow the next person to only have one exposed neutral to deal with. The hot side seems a little more straight forward. One bundle of 3 would have the source wire, continuing wire and black side of the switch. The next bundle would have the other side of the switch, the wire for the second light and the jumper for the fixture.

Well, maybe I just needed to talk it out, let me know what you think. Thanks

2

I’m a bit confused. If I’m reading this right, you have two lights (in the same ‘box’) and you’re going to replace both of them with a single light.
You have an always hot 14/3 coming in, and two switch loops. one for each light.

If it was me, I would just remove all the wires from both lights, wire the new (single) light to a [switched] hot, one of the neutrals and one of the grounds. Put a wire nuts on the loose hot as well as the loose neutral.

I understand that you want to bring it up to code, but removing two switch loops and adding a new one could be a considerably bigger project than you expect it to be if you don’t have access to the entire path the wire takes.

Any electrician that opened the box in the future would understand what’s going on and/or could quickly figure it out. It’ll look like there were two light on two switches or someone planned for that to happen eventually.
In fact, in many cases you’ll find capped off wires in ceiling light fixtures and their associated switches because it makes it very easy to upgrade to a ceiling fan.
Also, and this is just a small change, cap off the neutral and the hot and push them to the back of the box. If you do the same in the switch, it won’t be confusing at all.
It’ll also turn your bundle of 5 neutral wires into 3 (from the box, the switch loop and to the light). Eliminate the unneeded switch loop and neutral to removed light.