Oh, AutoDesk...you have such a way with words. Honestly, I would rather learn to design in OpenSCAD than send AutoDesk a single penny.
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I use FreeCAD exclusively, and while it does have several aspects about it that still suck, I have to say that it's has improved dramatically by the current release (0.21.1, I think) versus when I started using it which was around 0.18.
I have definitely found the workflow for certain operations to be a bit obtuse, but I've never actually had it been unable to do whatever I was trying to accomplish, ultimately, somehow in some way.
I'll take FreeCAD's quirks and foibles over any type of predatory subscription, licensing, or cloud only bullshit AutoDesk or Solidworks or whoever the hell else is up to. Any day, any time.
I also started using it around that time. And I agree with everything you said except the part where said it's improved dramatically. It's improved, yes, but I would call those improvements minimal, not dramatic, especially considering it's taken five years to accomplish them.
I don't know, I think the tree dependency fix in 0.2 was pretty huge. The rest of the stuff I can pretty much take or leave, including all the new toolbar icons which wasted who knows how many man-hours that probably could have been better spent elsewhere... But not having all my parts bork themselves because god forbid I modified a feature at the top of the tree rather than the bottom made using FreeCAD go from exhausting to use to actually properly functional -- at least for me.