The way I look at it, if an animal's natural diet is meant to have a moisture content of 85 to 95% and it's hard-wired to only eat and drink at dawn and dusk, free-feeding it a diet that is only a max of 10% moisture is VERY bad even if it was actually formulated for the nutritional needs of the species [which they are not because nobody knows what these are]. And the ONLY brand of pellets that is made without soy, with human grade ingredients and with naturally derived vitamins is Tops. But even Tops has no phytonutrients and it's way too dry for them so, no, there are no 'good' pellets and a vet's recommendation means nothing if the vet has had no birds of his own and has not done in-depth research on their natural diets [and this has to be species specific, too] because avian medicine texts don't cover parrot nutrition at all [I have a couple of them] so their opinion is as uninformed as anybody else's, I am afraid. I know that seeds have gotten a bad reputation but that was because people were feeding them seeds and water and nothing else. Seeds and nuts are part of every parrot natural diet [with the exception of the nectar eaters, of course] so unless you believe that man knows better than nature and that evolution did not exist, it's not logical to say that seeds are bad for birds. I have been feeding my birds [and I had an average of 240 under my care when I had the rescue] gloop and raw produce for breakfast and seeds/nuts for dinner for over 20 years and have never had a single one get a bad physical or show any signs of malnutrition. Quite the contrary! Even the ones that come to me with liver and kidney issues do hugely better under the fresh food diet to the point of birds that are borderline hepatic failure end up with actual normal bile acids levels after a few years! And I'll tell you something else, if you free-feed your caique protein food, he will end up in soft molt and hormonal. It has taken me almost an entire year of a good diet to get my caique's endocrine system back on track after being free-fed protein food!
I also did not assume you had no knowledge about parrots, I am going by what you posted: always wanted one but could not have it because father is allergic. You will find out that reading about parrots, looking at parrots and even interacting with somebody else's parrot is not the same as living with one. HUGE difference! And you will find out that thinking that you know enough already is the worst mistake you can make because if there is one thing that a good parrot keeper needs is the humility to realize that, when it comes to parrot husbandry, we are all babes in the woods... it's only that some of us have been 'in the woods' longer than others.
I have had parrots for 26 years [and I am not counting the ones we had back home when I was a young girl], have cared for hundreds of them covering a wide range of species, have rehabilitated birds with medical and behavioral issues, do research every single day on them and, if there is one thing I have learned and can assure you of, is that I don't know anywhere near enough!
I also did not say that you were hugging and kissing your parrot. You misunderstood, I used that as an example of human interaction that, in a way, correlates to the way parrots regard physical interaction.
As to training... well, it might surprise you to find out that I ran a dog and cat shelter for years and have trained A LOT of rescue dogs to the point that I used to specialize in aggressive dogs which I would foster in my house to rehabilitate [all my animals are rescues or adoptions, dogs, cats and birds]. Very successfully, I might add. So, yes, I do know about clicker training [I even have a certificate saying that I am a dog trainer -not that it's worth more than the paper it's printed on] but I still don't think it's necessary. People have been training dogs and lots of other animals for thousands of years without a clicker -and still do, as a matter of fact- so if they were essential to training, nobody would have been very successful, right? I would also not use a zoo practice as an example of good animal husbandry... zoos are terrible places for animals and the people who work there often don't have any empathy whatsoever for them [and I know because I worked in one].
You are also misinformed as to whether parrots have the capacity to 'want to please'. I can assure you that they do! It's only that it's not the same as dogs which want to please any Tom, Dick or Harry that
shows them a bit of love. Parrots will only want to please their chosen one and they will only please this chosen one if the request is a 'logical' one -which only means it needs to be logical to the parrot and not necessarily to the human because although it's perfectly logical for us to expect a pet not to destroy our home, as far as parrots are concerned, chewing your furniture is not a bad thing - same as throwing food all over the place. Parrots bond very deeply to their humans [if the humans do everything right, that is] and love them dearly and, where there is love, there is the desire to please -especially when there is high intelligence in the mix.
I don't know where you get that I am projecting my 'mistakes and misconceptions' on you... I will be the first one to admit that I had misconceptions and that I made mistakes with my parrots but, in all honesty, there is nobody who has not made mistakes with parrots or had misconceptions. And I am sure that we are all still making mistakes every day because although we have learned a lot about them in the last twenty years, we are only now scratching the surface and there is much more to learn than what we have already learned. It's kind of like the tip of the iceberg... And that's why I always tell people to do their own in-depth research! Not only because you don't want to take somebody's word as the gospel given the huge amount of misinformation there is out there on birdsites but also because we are learning new things every day about them.
As to the 'type' of bite [aggression bite versus fear bite, etc], you are thinking dogs. Parrots have two types of bite: defense/protection [which, of course, includes fear] and 'you are not listening to me so you give me no choice but to bite you'. They don't have 'aggression bite' because parrots don't have natural aggression [they are not predators and they did not evolve to live in a hierarchical society]. The first one is instinctual, hard-wired into their brains. The second one is one that humans teach them when they insist on asking or doing something the parrot is not willing to do. And this is the one that you do NOT want to reinforce with an newly adopted parrot. You simply do not want the parrot to think that you are not going to respect its wishes because, if you do, you will have double work to get him to stop doing this. I have taken in many aggressive parrots. A lot of them were just misunderstood and never showed any aggression whatsoever but there were a few that were hard nuts to crack because the previous owners did not treat them like parrots and taught them to bite - and the only thing that works is to avoid getting bit by never putting the bird in a position to have to do this. You say that the parrots is biting less and less every day and that is good but your parrot is in its honeymoon period and that means that he is on his very best behavior right now so if the best behavior means biting there is a distinct possibility that, once the honeymoon period is over, he will continue biting. I was just trying to make it easier on your parrot for the long term...
Look, you seem to take every single recommendation/advice I give you [which is based on many years of personal hands-on experience on many birds, a lot of research and out of a sincere desire to help birds] as an affront to you but I can assure you that this is not the intent. Why would I bother? I don't even know you! You talk about a 'condescending tone' which is pretty much impossible to judge from the written word as it implies a tone of voice but it might be that you think that because I tell you that you are misinformed and attribute a tone to my correcting you... It might be the 'my dear', which I use all the time with everybody [it's an old lady's affectation, I guess]... I don't know. I am here to help birds. Period. This, in my mind, means translating birds needs, behaviors and physiological functions to the people who care for them so as to give the bird a semi-good life [which is EXTREMELY hard to do!]. Sometimes this means telling people they are doing something wrong. It's not meant as disrespect to the person or condescension. it's simply that there is no other way of doing it.