I think the only potential improvement I can think of to the underlying model is that a patch-based system does seem like it would alleviate some of my pain poi

I think the only potential improvement I can think of to the underlying model is that a patch-based system does seem like it would alleviate some of my pain points, but the UX for that hasn't exactly been fully figured out either; last time I tried pijul, it certainly seemed compelling feature-wise, but I wasn't able to figure out everything I wanted to do with it easily. It also would mostly just be a quality of life improvement for me at this point too; git is fully capable of doing everything I need it to, but sometimes I might have to google a bit to figure out how exactly to tell it what I want.