Used to live in Barre. These places have their charm and benefits- when my husband and I moved to MA in 2019 on two teacher salaries, and had to buy a home, Worcester was on the edge of affordable but too competitive still, so we looked at homes in many of the places you noted. They are all really fairly different, and generally the closer you are to freeway access, the more expensive. Princeton is not very affordable at this point, especially if you’re thinking in terms of housing. It’s a beautiful place to live, and my favorite of the places you mentioned, with fantastic schools- but still a drive to get anywhere. It gets increasingly rural, affordable, conservative, and in some places, impoverished and rough, the further in you go, in my experience.