I love live plants, but they don't love me. Based upon my own wretched history with them, I would suggest that you concentrate on the plants that everyone tells you are bulletproof, but you may find that you prove that theory wrong with some of them. Don't get discouraged by that; just try something else, and you will eventually find a few species that do well
for you...regardless of what others say about them.
In my tanks, Anubias remain healthy but grow very, very slowly; Java Fern, on the other hand, has always wasted gradually away. Vals and Sags both do wonderfully, and will create wonderful jungle-tanks like
Jexnell
has shown above. Floaters like Duckweed, Hornwort, Guppy Grass, etc. are pretty tough to kill. The single variety of Amazon Sword I have, bleheri, started out as a single small plant that grew, spread, sent out runners, was sub-divided and flourished. I have seven decent-sized pots of it now, and have sold and given many more away in recent years.
Two things should be kept in mind. First, if you decide to go with live plants, it works best if you actually buy a decent number of them all at once right at the beginning. It's common for aquarists to buy one or two small plants just to try out the idea, but the problem is that a single plant still needs all the light and nutrients as a tankful, but the tank will soon be overgrown with algae that thrive in the same conditions. Buying a good number of plants gives them a chance to compete with, and hopefully outcompete, the algae.
The other thing may or may not be a concern for you, depending upon your tastes. Your tank now has that spotless, flawless, completely neat and clean almost-sterile appearance that some folks strive for and maintain permanently. If you add live plants, you can say goodbye to that notion, unless you are planning upon spending time virtually every day trimming, snipping, cleaning and scrubbing. A live-plant tank has a natural lived-in kind-of-messiness that is very difficult to combat. There will always be the odd dead leaf, the occasional stray root or broken stem, and of course there will always be some algae appearing on rocks, driftwood, glass and even on the plants themselves. Your mechanical filter or pre-filter will definitely require more frequent cleaning.
So...look at the pics above of your tank now and the one
Jexnell
shows. If you think his looks terrific, as I do, then the only way you will be happy is with live plants; plastic just can't and won't achieve that effect. If you look at your tank now and say "That's perfect; I wouldn't change a thing!', then...don't change a thing.
Good luck!
