I have all lowtechs, with one sounding a bit like your plan -
<a nano tank lowtech with mosses, ephiphytes and crypts>. It's not an algae nightmare at all, it's probably my easiest tank. I think the key to lowtech and not much algae is to have quite low light, and if you want more then very slowly raise the light until you get optimum growth/viewing without problems. At one point early on I had a big filamentous hair algae problem (from an infected plant), so I did a blackout and lowered the light a little after and it fully went away.
I keep a variety of shrimps and snails (cherries, amanos, rabbits and common small snails) in it, so it remains really clean. I can't reach the substrate because of the hardscape, so I don't vac it ever and it's still fine, I also have some blackworms in there to break things down. I have more algae problems in my softwater tanks where I can't keep inverts.
For a beautiful hightech look, I really recommend doing a dry start with your mosses, it makes them come in really bushy and natural a month or two after flooding. This style of tank is great, the maintenance other than water changes is almost nothing, I maybe move/remove small bits of plants once a month or so to make it look more balanced. I also almost never have to cut out dead leaves, as the inverts eat them.
I haven't found the need for any long-stemmed plants, but I do have a variety of floating plants covering 50% of the surface. I actually find long-stemmed plants quite annoying in a lowtech, because they're the easiest ones to get algae, and it's impossible to get rid of the algae on their leaves without chopping them. If you have a nice plant like a crinum where you can't just chop, it makes it really hard to get rid of. They also grow really fast and need the most trimming/ripping out.
I've bought quite a lot of plants from people here which were from their hightech tanks, I don't have many problems with these plants suffering. Generally some of the leaves start to look a bit sad in the first 2 weeks, but then new growth comes in looking just as nice, but smaller than before. So you can take whatever you have and repurpose it easily.