Sounds neat, but I still think complexity is removed if the deployment is not directly linked to the code repository. For me the code repositories purpose is to build software, and operation is not it's responsibility.

I prefer having a gitops repository that describes the environment. Completely decoupled from the source code repository. If some automation directly from the source repository is required, a CI job can automatically update the gitops repository and trigger a deployment.

Separation of concerns.

the hotfix is extremely useful

but you have to be so so careful when you're missing up history, when it comes to db migrations and api compatibility