Do have a pi but havent bothered setting that up to be the media server yet. at the moment have a ps4 for playback on the tv and jellyfin running on the pc with the *arr stack for gathering. Im glad I changed over to jellyfin a couple months ago moving away from plex, since plex doesn’t work if PSN is down. Plex used to be decent, like 10+ years ago, jellyfin is exactly the same except theres no native app for the PS4 so I have to use the web browser but thats fine. Also have tailscale configured so I can easily reach the media server when im out and about.

Why you blaming the OS for manufacturers issues. There are still phones out there with microSD and 3.5mm. Probably also some with decent transfer stuff. Funnily enough, even if another OS took over, it won’t necessarily bring back all the features you want, since they are hardware based. And OS is software.