I've had huge problems with PulseAudio over the last 14 years, but now there are only two left: it randomly hard-hangs a few times a day and it sometimes stops

I've had huge problems with PulseAudio over the last 14 years, but now there are only two left: it randomly hard-hangs a few times a day and it sometimes stops sending audio to a bluetooth speaker (or occasionally to headphones) while acting as if everything is fine. The latter shows up with speakers from two different manufacturers. Everything else I used to hate about Pulse has gotten better: weird audio distortion, clicking & crackling, skipping, messing up the soundcard enough to require reloading modules, getting stuck on mute, jumping to max volume when things were connected - thankfully all gone. I've had the hang & audio interruption on Mint, openSUSE, an Ubuntu so I'm inclined to think it's something inside Pulse and I've got some hope that those last bits will get fixed. (I am aware that actually playing sound is the first responsibility of a sound system, but I'm being optimistic here.)