I like the idea, but it's a deeply frustrating experience right now. Basic table-stakes features I have come to assume from both Android and iOS platforms just aren't there yet.

It's a frustrating chicken egg problem... I want the thing to succeed, but my smartphone is so critical to my day-to-day that I can either wait for it to get better or invest the time into having it suck on toast while I improve it.

I'd also have to figure out some more specifically personal stuff like alternatives or Matrix bridges for apps I 'need to' use to communicate with certain people.

Why again? Android is already free and open source and Linux doesn't have good answers for the proprietary goodies

It's not without trying either, I've worked on and off on a terraform provider for Android - currently apps only but with some vague intention to try to manage as much of settings as possible (not much, AIUI). It's just not meant to be used like that though, of course, and I wish Linux was a viable enough option that, at least among nerds already using Linux for work if nothing else, it didn't need to be justified for use on phones.

It doesn't need to. The feasible short-term target is feature parity with de-googled AOSP roms, which would still make it plenty useful in a "daily driver" scenario.