I want to connect them to home assistant, so arguments like zigbee can be better automated should fall short as well, right?

Wrong. Too many WiFi devices depend on “cloud” services. Home Assistant controlling an automation by calling a cloud service, then waiting for the device to synchronize with that cloud service frequently causes noticeable delay.

Zigbee is a low power mesh protocol, unlike WiFi which is a constant connection central hub protocol. Zigbee will use less power because the devices only wake up to send a message then go back into low power mode. They also have more “resiliency” because it a node goes down it is likely that the other devices will still be able to communicate to HA through a different route.

My reason for preferring Zigbee over wifi was pretty simple: I don't trust IoT manufacturers, so I want as few smart home devices connected to the Internet as possible. With Zigbee not providing Internet connectivity, that's one less thing for me to worry about.

Additionally, lots of Zigbee devices act as repeaters, so it's unlikely you'd need multiple Zigbee hubs. My only Zigbee hub is in the basement, and I can control my Hue lights in the attic no problem, thanks to the devices in-between rebroadcasting and commands they see.