One obstacle to making AOSP independent is the included apps. Last I knew they were overly basic and somewhat derelict because Google has long been favoring the

One obstacle to making AOSP independent is the included apps. Last I knew they were overly basic and somewhat derelict because Google has long been favoring their own closed source counterparts, and third party manufacturers all ship their own (often kinda garbage) alternatives. Not insurmountable at all, building decent apps isn’t rocket science, but a substantial investment of time and energy nonetheless.