"I am hoping that it would be some kind of trade off that the virus makes in that it can spread more easily but not be as severe..."

I've definitely seen outlets postulating that the endgame for COVID-19 would be it doing exactly this— becoming way more contagious but way less severe, basically a just a kind of cold. These "final" variants would quickly spread everywhere, choking off the supply of new hosts for the more deadly variants, effectively achieving herd immunity.