Questions on usage of 'like' & 'the'

Good morning!

Hope all is well in internet-land.

I wanted to ask two questions: one about the proper use of 'like' and another about the proper use of 'the'.

I recently entered into a position as a content developer and have received a few critiques about my writing style. I am trying to understand certain things as it has been a minute since I have taken an English writing course.

1. I received a critique based on the sentence: "Capitalizing on assets like copious amounts of funding and scientific expertise, this conference joins over 900..." so on and so forth. I always thought that as long as you do not use 'like' as a slang term, then it is okay to use. It was the only time in that paragraph it was used. We ended up using 'including', which seems fine, but the sentence only encompassed those two items.

2. I saw an edit on some content that added 'the' in sentence. The sentence was as follows (a continuation from above): "...which include being the home to the largest ball of yarn and the only anti-gravity machine..." I was always under the impression that if you do not need 'the', which I didn't think that you did here, then do not put it in. It becomes a sort of filler?

I was interested on thoughts on these two items. It's hard to dissect what the internet says generally and never quite addresses the issue.

Please note: I edited the sentences to protect my privacy. That is why the content may not make sense but the structure is the same.

Thanks!