Thank you @MikeMcQ ! Very much appreciated!
Yes, that makes sense and it looks like an option that I'll keep in mind and experiment with.
I also realized that I can reframe the problem as "backup / restore" and then search results become more meaningful. I also need to consider that the files in the "live" directory are actually symbolic links to the "archive" directory. My current approach doesn't consider that yet. I have found this post which looks at options for addressing that particular issue: CertStorageError: expected /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/cert.pem to be a symlink
Again, thank you, Mike! This gave me a range of additional pointers that I'll be exploring, including your suggestion.