Grind off the "minor bumps", use a moisture barrier on the concrete, ..........put down an ENGINEERED hardwood.

Every flooring needs a properly prepared subfloor. An LVT.......same thing. Ditto a wood look tile.

Waterproof means the flooring is unaffected by water, that's all. Water will still get thru the flooring (either up or down). If and when this happens the entire floor needs to be pulled, washed, and allowed to dry (warm sun is the best) as well as the substrate needs time to dry out completely before the flooring can be reinstalled.

We have been happy with the CoreTec LVT that we have installed. We have ours installed upstairs over a smooth substrate. If we had installed over our slab on the first floor (no basement), we would have had to grind/ self level a little to make it (or any LVT work). Sorry about your laminate.

Porcelain tile. Although some vinyls aren’t damaged by water, their backing is. Any floor event is going to have an issue.

As Patricia states, do the subfloor prep properly and you won't have to worry about imperfections telegraphing through the vinyl.

The cork on the bottom of the plank isn't a big deal. Because this is a basement you will naturally be using a vapour barrier over the concrete slab anyways. That is what protects the cork.

A good/well made vinyl product will be $4-$7/sf (should be 5-7 times more expensive than LL laminate) and will be 6.5mm - 8mm or thicker (Coretech is in that range).

And as millworkman mentions, ANYTHING that is subjected to serious water damage will probably have to be removed for cleaning/drying anyway. Which is why you keep 10% of the left over product (100sf for 1000sf of space) so that you can achieve a SERIOUS repair without having to purchase 100% more flooring.

If it were me, as a cork flooring expert, I would install a cork floating floor in a basement (with the vapour barrier) and a 6mm cork underlay (to absorb some of the imperfections of the substrate) and live with a lovely warm quiet floor.

And remember: most vinyl (the stuff WITHOUT the attached underlayment) does NOT like underpad. That means your cold cement floor will become a chilly vinyl floor.

We had a flood and did not lift our LVP at all. It was totally fine. Looks pristine still. We had restoration work done and fans etc

We have dri -core with vinyl plank over top and our vinyl is pretty much water proof from the top since all the planks stick to each other We have had some water come in from underneath but the dri core kept the water under the flooring . It has since been fixed so no more water from under it.