Design preferences has a tendency to be “cyclical” appearing to be tiresome. That’s fine and an encouraged strength of customisablility.
The issue is unified design language across android devices. Material You attempts to solve this to limited success. But it’s better than the alternatives I’ve seen in the past.
The over-padding (especially default widgets) is something I take issue with but it’s a preference and can easily be adjusted.
I admire the late Conroy as much as the next guy but my brother in christ this mindset is exactly what fuels this level of quality by directly justifying it via your purchase.
You can’t solely blame these corporation if you continue to behave in ways that to support and incentivises them to utilise these strategies.