I stopped using symlink dotfile management when I realized that not every unix system you work on works well that way, the catalyst for this change was termux. Now I simply copy the files from Dropbox using a custom script. It replicates the utility of stow without the symlinks. Downside is I have to remember to rerun the script on all my machines whenever anything changes.

I fixed this by integrating all of personal software dev together into a singular build system that will run my sync script, which also manages the various package managers on my systems, once a day if it hasn't been run. Idempotency is my best friend.