I think this is a very different question as a homeschooler and as a student hoping for merit. Some may require for either homeschool or merit, you need to look individually. I went through this process twice with homeschool students. I suspect your DE GPA will be much more important than any GPA you are assigning at home. But if your student has a strong DE GPA across many disciplines, that may be helpful.
I did have one student with test scores to apply anywhere and 35 DE credits (GPA 4.0). And then my 2nd kid had 45 DE credits (GPA 3.81) and went mostly test optional (due to covid, we spelled this out in the school profile and in the section about covid impacts in the common app). I will say both my kids did similarly in terms of admissions and merit money. Both did DE on campus at well regarded CCs and my 2nd also did some DE at a 4 year flagship. I suspect if your student is taking hard hitting DE classes and 30+ credits at application time (English, math, SS, Science covered) you may not need that test score unless it is otherwise required for homeschoolers. But 8 DE classes can also be less than 20 credits too and might not make much impact if you don’t have a breadth of core subjects. If that’s the case you may want the score.
Just make sure you have an affordable academic safety that your student can thrive at and discourage the concept of a dream school that rejects most. If your student is a junior, I would have another try next spring/summer with maybe a little warm up prior. Because many students will just naturally go up after another year of academic course work.