I’m with you on that, as I think many others are. If you walk the “other stuff” path, it’s not censorship resistance or dissident communication, it’s more like self sovereign publishing. A 3rd mode, a blogging renaissance (now with video!), which is also fantastic for a certain type of creative.
I have however come to the conclusion that the event schema drives relay design, and it’s a blocker, not enabler. A giant serialized string with an array of undocumented tags is no way to live.
It’s worth considering, if you were going to give ground on keys (identity), relays, or schema, which would you be willing to allow for other standards or services?