I wish I could have this level of optimism. If US voters actually wanted all of these things, there is absolutely no way that the margins in congress would be as razor thin as they are, gerrymandering or not.

Literally the effect of gerrymandering is that a set of people who share both ideology and party get more voting power.

It's pretty clear that the average Republican in the US has been galvanized into partnership, so the members of that party will very likely vote cohesively with each other.

It's also pretty clear that the same is not happening in the Democratic party. Most Democratic voters I hear from disagree with one another ideologically, and do not feel effectively represented by their party. It is not likely that voters in the Democratic party will vote cohesively with one another.

The effect of that applied to gerrymandering is that districts over-representing republicans take advantage of the average Republican voter cohesion, while districts that over-represent the Democratic party do not.

Voter cohesion is the strongest vector for outcomes I can think of in our first-past-the-post representative voting system.

It's my contention that changing the structure of our voting system or factoring out gerrymandering would have a drastic effect on legislative outcomes.

That would be great, but it assumes that there wouldn't (continue to) be massive voter suppression by the right wing, guaranteeing that their pet issues win in most of the south and midwest.