It's like if Microsoft had decreed in the 2000s that Mozilla can only make their browser as an IE6 toolbar, with IE6 still rendering the pages and enforcing weird rules.

Thankfully that would have gotten Microsoft in trouble with anti-trust regulators in the 2000s. In 2022 anti-competitive behavior from platform holders is unfortunately tolerated - both for Apple and Microsoft.

Sorry but the adblocking, night-mode, and sync make it a lot better for me than safari, so it's not just "safari with a wig" which would imply only the interface looked a bit different but otherwise it worked the same, which is not the case.