Most of the usb sticks seem to perform about the same as microSD cards, and I wouldn't trust them (especially the tiny ones that get super hot like the Ultra Fi

Most of the usb sticks seem to perform about the same as microSD cards, and I wouldn't trust them (especially the tiny ones that get super hot like the Ultra Fit) for booting anything important. USB SATA/NVMe SSDs are just as reliable as internal drives, in my experience. I've had a few of them running 24x7 on my NAS for years (with decent amounts of activity). And the Corsair GTX, while massive, is as fast as an SSD and supports UASP and TRIM. It's just big, and relatively expensive, for a 'thumb drive'.