There’re also real dual-SIM iPhones, but they’re market restricted (typically to China).

Docs for SIM + eSIM: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph9c5776d3c/io...

Docs for dual physical SIM: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209086

I used to have a dual physical SIM iPhone X from China! However, when I sent it in to get (warranty) a local Apple repair shop screwed up and replaced it with a North American model. After much gnashing of teeth with Apple Support, I wound up with a new iPhone 12…but no dual physical SIM.

Now my phone is still confused after restoring from backup and cannot see the eSIM. I’ve been filing feedbacks and radars to no avail. If I was on Android I’d have just rooted it and deleted the offending (mis)configuration file already!

Not sure if this would help, but I recently learned about a product called iMazing[1] that lets you browse and edit iTunes backups.

You can't access the whole filesystem of a running iDevice with it, but you can access the whole filesystem of the backup. So I suspect it might be possible for you to clean-up the backup offline & then restore it. (At a minimum it should enable you to extract the valuable contents out of the backup and manually restore it on top of a clean iOS install.)

I've used it with some success to extract info from the photos database. I just wish they had a consumer-facing (read: more affordable/perpetually licensed) version of their CLI tool.

[1]: https://imazing.com/

Yep, my SE2020 is like that, and was sold in the US

I cannot recall the specifics but I remember that there were some issues with eSIMs for certain use cases (possible that those were teething troubles that have been resolved).

Also, I like the flexibility of using the physical SIM because I can easily use them with both smart and feature phones without issues.